What is Latte Coffee? How to Make Iced Latte at Home?

The hot days are back, and cold drinks are appearing on menus everywhere. Coffee remains the perennial favorite, and a glass of iced coffee is hard to beat. If you would rather enjoy it at home than go out for it, why not make it yourself?

FrontStreet Coffee would like to walk you through a simple, easy-to-follow method for an iced latte. With the right ingredients and equipment, you can put together a genuinely delicious one by following a few steps. But first: what exactly is a latte?

Latte coffee, or caffè latte, is one of the many Italian-style drinks, generally a beverage made from fresh hot milk and espresso, and a particularly popular one in Italy. As the milk is poured into the cup, a barista can draw patterns in the foam with small movements of the wrist, a technique known as latte art.

Coffee Beans for Making Iced Latte

For a drink like this, FrontStreet Coffee recommends Italian-roast level beans with chocolate and nutty flavor notes. Try FrontStreet Coffee's specialty blend espresso beans first, then experiment and adjust to your own taste.

If you prefer less bitterness, choose a medium roast, ideally one with natural floral and fruity aromas. FrontStreet Coffee's Strawberry Candy espresso blend pulls with bright fruit acidity and delicate pink florals, and once the milk goes in it turns into something closer to strawberry cream cake and caramel cookies, sweet and smooth.

Iced Latte Making Method

Step 1:

Take a glass with a capacity of about 300ml.

Step 2:

Add 80g of ice and pour in 170ml of milk.

Step 3:

Grind 20g of coffee beans and extract a 40ml shot of espresso. Adjust these parameters to suit your equipment and how the beans are behaving on the day.

Step 4:

Pour the espresso into the glass already filled with ice and milk.

Step 5:

Stir well and enjoy.

Finishing a homemade iced coffee brings its own small sense of accomplishment. Take a moment to savor that along with the drink.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

For anyone learning latte art at home, FrontStreet Coffee's Classic Blend is the place to start. It is a medium-dark espresso recipe combining three origins, inspired by the old "Mamba" style of Mandheling and Brazil, with a little Robusta added for aroma and crema. It extracts with obvious notes of butter, toasted bread, and caramel cookie, a strong, solid body, and a fine, stable crema that makes it an excellent everyday bean for beginners.

If you lean toward a nuttier profile, FrontStreet Coffee's Specialty Blend pairs washed Colombian coffee with pulped-natural Brazilian coffee. This medium-dark espresso bean delivers nuts, dark chocolate, and caramel, and whether you make an Americano or a milk drink such as a latte or flat white, it highlights creamy, almond, and cocoa notes. The crema is easily a match for what a cafe produces, and it is more than capable of standing up to latte-art practice, which makes it a favorite for anyone who wants to open a shop or simply train at home.

For pulling shots all day, FrontStreet Coffee's Commercial Blend is built for volume. It takes the Specialty Blend as its base and adds a small amount of Robusta, a traditional Italian approach intended to create more fine, dark-brown crema and a heavier body. Americano, latte, or mocha, it carries nuts, cocoa, and caramel throughout, and it makes pouring latte art genuinely easy.

For the iced latte above, FrontStreet Coffee's Strawberry Candy is the more fruit-forward choice. Pulled as espresso it has bright fruit acidity and delicate pink florals, and with milk it becomes sweet and smooth, closer to strawberry cream cake and caramel cookies.