Sorry Aussie pals, but although Magic Coffee™ has been yours exclusively since the early noughties, it’s finally made its way across the pond.
Once a fairly underground order in the coffee shops of Melbourne, Magic Coffee has been pulled into the limelight by none other than Marks and Spencer.
Yup, move the hell over flat white, there’s a new trendy coffee order in town.
So what’s the big deal?
M&S said: “Magic Coffee is uniquely bold coffee, without the bitterness. Served with velvety steamed milk, it is hailed as having the ‘magic’ perfectly balanced ratio of coffee to milk.”
Okay... but that still kinda sounds like a flat white? Let us explain the difference.
Magic Coffee is made with a double ristretto shot and steamed milk in a 6oz cup – the same size as a cortado for the coffee aficionados reading this.
A ristretto uses the same amount of coffee as your standard espresso shot but is far more concentrated due to its shorter extraction time.
Still with us? The extraction time is the time it takes for water to pass through the coffee grounds. The less the extraction time, the less bitter the coffee is.
Fortunately M&S have a nifty guide to show what goes into a Magic Coffee versus your coffee shop classics.
Head of coffee for M&S, Tom Rawlinson, travelled to the home of Magic Coffee, Melbourne, in November to understand the hype behind it.
“You often hear coffee lovers asking for ‘a magic’,” he explained.
“It’s a short coffee with a bold, intense flavour, but because it’s made with a double ristretto rather than a double espresso, it doesn’t have as much bitterness as other shorter coffees like a flat white or cortado.
“It’s called a magic as it is quite literally the magic ratio of coffee to milk.”
You’ll only be able to head to an M&S cafe to try the magic out for yourself as M&S have trademarked ‘Magic Coffee’ with the Intellectual Property Office. So, no, rival coffee chains such as Pret and Costa can’t sell a Magic.
At least until they rebrand it as something else...