Black Coffee Making: Can Americano Have Latte Art & How to Create Milk Foam Without Large Bubbles

"I'd like an Americano, with latte art on top!"

Many people's first reaction after reading this might be: Isn't Americano just black coffee? How can it have latte art without milk? In this article, FrontStreet Coffee will share how to make an Americano with latte art.

The Composition of Americano

Americano refers to espresso extracted at a 1:2 ratio, diluted with an appropriate amount of water. Traditional Americano uses a coffee-to-water ratio of 1:8, but this ratio cannot be applied to all espresso. Therefore, regarding how much water to add to Americano, adjustments need to be made based on the coffee beans you have.

Taking the espresso extracted from FrontStreet Coffee's Ethiopian Natural Red Cherry and Honduras Sherry Blend as an example, FrontStreet Coffee dilutes the 40g coffee liquid extracted from 20g coffee grounds at different ratios, finally using a 1:6 ratio (40g coffee liquid diluted with 240g water) to make Americano.

How to Make an Americano with Latte Art?

Prepare Ice Water Mixture

Add 100g of ice cubes and 140g of room temperature water to a latte pitcher (this is the amount of water FrontStreet Coffee needs for making Americano; everyone should adjust according to their actual situation). This pitcher of ice water is the "key player" for Americano latte art, especially crucial during the frothing process of the "milk foam" later.

Extract Espresso

FrontStreet Coffee uses 20g coffee grounds to extract 40g coffee liquid, with a total extraction time of 28 seconds. Using a double-spouted portafilter to split into two portions of espresso, one is poured into a cup for later use, and the other is added to the prepared ice water mixture.

Coffee Foam Frothing

Since this is an Americano, dairy products cannot be used for frothing foam. Therefore, for the "milk foam" part, we use one portion of espresso added to ice water for frothing to create fine foam. Since frothing foam requires a certain amount of time, if ice is not added to control the temperature, the coffee in the pitcher will heat up quickly.

In this situation, not only will the foam not have time to become fine, but excessive heat will also make the coffee bitter. Therefore, the frothing temperature for coffee foam should be controlled between 70°C-75°C (note: frothing milk foam cannot use such high temperature; this is only for coffee foam), after all, it's too hot to perform latte art.

The thickness of frothed coffee is the same as the thickness of frothed latte foam, about 1.5cm. During the frothing process, we only need to aerate for 3-4 seconds, then use the stable vortex created during heating to eliminate the non-fine foam.

Integrating Coffee Foam with Espresso

The frothed coffee foam should be integrated with the espresso in the cup as quickly as possible. The dissipation speed of coffee foam is faster than that of milk foam, which means the layering speed of the foam will also accelerate. When integrating, pay attention to fully mixing the foam with the espresso base. Insufficient integration will result in "jagged edges" when creating the latte art pattern.

For professional coffee knowledge exchange and more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat public account: cafe_style)

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473