Do you ever say "coffee with milk" or "coffee and milk"?

Solution 1:

As you intimate latte is a specific type of coffee. The word is Italian which is why you frequently find it on the menu in an Italian coffee shop.

Latte - from Wikipedia

Caffe latte is a coffee drink made with espresso and steamed milk. The word comes from the Italian caffè e latte, caffelatte or caffellatte, which means "coffee & milk".

So latte is a drink made using coffee and steamed milk. Which is why latte will always include milk.

So, can we make these sentences to express our preferences?

I like my coffee with milk. / I like to have coffee and milk in the morning

Although conventionally we refer to 'a cup of coffee' to mean whatever is in the cup, including anything we have mixed with the coffee... Coffee actually has a narrower definition:

Coffee - from Cambridge Dictionary

A dark brown powder with a strong flavour and smell that is made by crushing coffee beans, or a hot drink made from this powder.

Technically, if you have coffee and milk, you have two separate things, coffee and milk, as Jim pointed out in the comments to your question.

So the correct phrase you should use is coffee with milk, which implies you will be mixing the two together to make your beverage. This is also a popular idiom.

e.g.

"What you like milk with your coffee?"... "Yes please."