flat white

plural flat whites

1. A type of white coffee made with espresso coffee and hot milk, similar to a small latte.

   ‘Two flat whites, please,’ she said to the waiting Kelly. ‘In mugs.’

   2009, Michelle Douglas, The Aristocrat and the Single Mom, page 17

   3 more examples

   Coffee at Adelaide airport at 2 p.m., 9 July 2006. In all innocence, I prepared to judge carefully two flat whites. The Melbourne-based franchise chain Hudsons Coffee proclaimed a ‘formidable reputation for consistently making great cups of coffee’, but its airport outlet provided no evidence of this.

   2007, Michael Symons, One Continuous Picnic: A Gastronomic History of Australia, 2nd edition, page 323

   It was during this break that Cole realised that New Zealanders had no idea how to make coffee, serving up flat whites in cups the size of cereal bowls, and suggesting they were caffe lattes.

   2009, Colin McLaren, On the Run, page 57

   My boss orders two flat whites. I′ve got to hand it to her, there′s no pretention about a flat white.

   2010, Elizabeth Martin, The Coffeeholic and the Cafe, page 111

   Synonyms: flattie

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see flat, white; especially, white paint that is not glossy.