Long Black vs Americano: the same shot, and the order you pour it

In short

A long black and an americano start from an identical espresso. What separates them is the volume of water and the order of pouring: the long black goes water first, so the crema survives.

Order a long black in Melbourne and an americano in Milan and you are handed two cups that look identical: a shot of espresso and some hot water. The menus price them the same. Most cafés make them with the same machine, the same beans and the same grind.

There are exactly two differences, and only one of them is the one people argue about.

The first difference is 40 grams of water

Both drinks start from the same espresso: 18 g of coffee in, about 36 g of liquid out, at 93 °C, ground fine. Nothing about the shot changes between them.

What changes is the water added afterwards. Our long black takes 110 g; the americano takes 150 g. That is 40 g — about two tablespoons — and it is the whole of the volume argument.

The consequence is strength, not flavour in any complicated sense. The same amount of dissolved coffee spread through less water tastes more concentrated. A long black is a smaller, denser drink; an americano is a longer, milder one. If you find americanos watery, you do not need different beans — you need 40 g less water.

The second difference is the order, and it is the one that matters

A long black is poured water first. The hot water goes into the cup, and the espresso is drawn on top of it. An americano is the other way round: the shot is pulled first and the water goes in after.

That sounds like fussiness and is not. Crema — the pale foam on top of a fresh shot — is an emulsion of coffee oils and dissolved carbon dioxide, and it is fragile. Pouring hot water through it breaks it up and stirs it into the drink, where it dissipates within a few seconds. Pouring the espresso onto water that is already in the cup leaves the crema sitting on the surface where it formed.

So a long black arrives with a visible crema layer and an americano usually does not. You can taste the difference for the first minute or two: the aromatics that would have escaped as the crema collapsed are still there, sitting under your nose while you drink. After that the two converge, which is why the distinction matters more to the person pouring than to the person who left the cup for ten minutes.

There is a temperature effect too. Water poured into a cup first has a moment to give heat to the ceramic before the shot lands, so a long black tends to reach you slightly cooler than an americano made with water straight off the boiler. Cafés that care about this pull the water short of boiling for exactly that reason.

What about an iced americano?

Different drink, different problem. Ours takes 120 g of cold water over ice, and the shot goes in last — water-first by construction, like a long black. The reason is not crema this time; it is that pouring hot espresso onto ice melts it and dilutes the drink twice: once with the water you meant to add, and once with the water you did not.

The volume looks close to the hot americano's 150 g, but it is not comparable: melting ice will add more as you drink. Iced coffee recipes that taste strong at the first sip and thin at the last are usually recipes written for the first sip.

Where the two names came from

The americano is the older word and the story behind it is probably half true: American soldiers stationed in Italy during the Second World War are said to have found espresso too intense and asked for it lengthened, and Italian cafés obliged with a name that was not entirely a compliment. Whatever the origin, the drink spread as espresso plus water, in that order, because that is the order a busy bar can work in.

The long black is Australian and New Zealand, and much more recent — it belongs to the same espresso culture that produced the flat white. It was named for what it is rather than who ordered it: long, meaning lengthened, and black, meaning no milk. The water-first method came with the name, which is why the distinction survives in those two countries and blurs almost everywhere else.

Which should you make at home?

If you have a machine that pulls espresso, make a long black — water in the cup first, then the shot. It costs nothing extra, it keeps the crema, and if you decide it is too strong you can add water to a long black. You cannot take water out of an americano.

Start at 110 g of water to a 18 g dose and adjust from there. If you are working from a scale, the ratio is what to keep hold of, not the millilitre marks on the side of a mug: mugs vary by a factor of two and the coffee does not care what shape its container is.