Latte art is primarily a nice way of offering your customers a little recognition, a ‘Thank you for drinking coffee with us.’ It is also a way to give a really nice surprise to your guests at home. With latte art you use a little magic to change a cappuccino into a beautiful as well as a tasty drink. Besides that, latte art offers a barista the opportunity to put his or her stamp on the cappuccino.
Latte art offers an extra medium for demonstrating your skills, but it does require a lot of patience and practice. Above all, it only works with perfectly steamed milk and a perfectly brewed espresso. Being able to decorate a cappuccino with a heart, a tulip or any other design requires a lot of practice. Don’t get discouraged too quickly. Bite the bullet and carry on, because every barista produced many failed creations before he or she mastered the art. And keep practising to refine, improve and maintain your skills.
Let’s get to work
The following basic techniques will familiarize you with latte art.
Step 1: keep the dark brown surface intact
It is important for the design that the dark brown surface of the espresso remain intact. If you hold the jug a little too high when pouring, the force of gravity will cause the milk to drop below the surface of the crema. Pouring gently but smoothly will keep the brown crema on the surface intact.
If you don’t hold the frothing jug high enough and thus pour too close to the cup, the milk foam floats on the creamy layer of the espresso and you will not succeed in creating a drawing. If you pour too hard, the milk froth will go right through the crema and the force of gravity will make it hit the bottom of the cup and rebound up through the coffee. This mixes it with the crema on the surface and it messes up the design. So the message here is ‘Keep practising!’
Step 2: breaking the crema
When the cup is half-filled with milk, you break the crema. You do that by holding the jug spout as close to the espresso’s creamy layer as you can. In other words, you stop using the force of gravity. In this way, the milk froth no longer penetrates the crema and floats on it. The liquid part of the milk – which is heavier – will sink under the crema.
Step 3: the design
Then you can create the design. The important point here is that the design has a brown border, i.e. its edges are highlighted by the crema. When you sip the cappuccino, you can clearly taste that it is coffee with milk. If there is no brown border, you have added too much milk to the cappuccino, which will make the milky flavor dominant.
The designs
Heart
- Hold the cup in one hand and the milk jug in your dominant hand.
- Gently tilt the cup until the espresso almost runs out of the cup. In that way you create a larger working surface in the cup.
- Pour the milk gently but smoothly onto the bottom of the cup, using gravity to pour the milk under the crema. It is important to have good control over the power of the stream you are pouring.
- Once the cup is half-filled, lower the milk jug until you have the tip of the spout as close as possible to the crema.
- As the cup fills up you gradually bring it to a horizontal position to prevent the coffee running out.
- The milk froth is now floating on the surface and you create a white disc.
- Once the cup is almost full, you use the stream of milk to draw a stripe through the white circle, which turns the white disc into a heart shape. As you draw the stripe through the disc, you move the jug upwards a little, so that the stream becomes narrower and the line gradually becomes finer towards the bottom end of the heart design.
Hearts in hearts
- Follow the method above but once you have the white disc, you start to sway the milk jug gently back and forth, creating semi-circular stripes. These stripes give you brown crema stripes between the white areas of the heart shape and a ‘hearts in hearts’ effect is created.
Rosetta
- Hold the cup in one hand and milk jug in your dominant hand.
- Pour the milk gently but smoothly into the centre of the cup, using gravity to force the milk under the crema. It is important that you have good control over the power of the stream you are pouring.
- Once the cup is half-filled, lower the milk jug until you have the tip of the spout as close as possible to the crema.
- The milk froth is now floating on the surface and you create a white disc.
- Sway the jug from left to right while you gently move it towards the back of the cup, extending the squiggly shape as you go. Make sure the tip of the spout of the milk jug is as close as possible to the crema, so that you get a nice contrast of colours.
- Once the cup is almost filled and the milk jug is right at the back of the cup, you use the stream to draw a thin line through the shape, right to the front of the cup. This is how you create the vein of the ‘rosetta’..
What can go wrong?
- If the milk is too thin, it will not form a froth, which makes it very difficult to create a design.
- Milk that is too thick means that the milk has been stretched for too long. In this case the stream from the jug will be too coarse for creating a design.
- Too little contrast is a sign that the jug spout was not brought close enough to the crema surface.
- If you move or sway the milk jug too quickly, the stream will not have time to pour into a nice form for drawing. So, don’t move too fast, and give the stream time to form shapes nicely.
- But pouring too carefully will make the jet too thin and only liquid milk will be poured into the cup. The thick froth will remain in the milk jug. Beginners in particular often make this mistake.
- The angle at which you hold the jug determines the thickness or thinness of the stream of milk froth. Holding the jug more horizontally increases the thickness of the milk you are pouring. Holding it more upright or vertically will make the milk you are pouring thinner. The art is in finding the golden mean here.