How to Learn and Practice Latte Art Etching Designs: Steamed Milk Frothing Tutorial

While scrolling through coffee latte art videos, you watch baristas shaking their pitcher, and beautiful textured lines emerge. But when it's your turn to shake, "Um, um, um, are these videos fake?"

In reality, the inability to create textured patterns is largely due to issues with the milk foam. Textured latte art has very high requirements for the thickness and density of the milk foam. If you're only creating a "large heart," you just need to ensure the foam is dense, as the tolerance for foam thickness is relatively larger, as long as there's some fluidity. However, to create delicate textured lines, the milk foam needs to be sufficiently thin. Only when the foam is thin enough will it have greater fluidity, allowing you to press out beautiful lines.

When frothing milk, FrontStreet Coffee wants to share a stable method with you. Regardless of whether you prefer to froth clockwise or counterclockwise, you need to find a pivot point between the pitcher and the steam wand. Fixing this pivot point will save you much energy used to maintain the pitcher's position and make the entire frothing process more stable.

The blue box indicates the pivot point; the red box shows the position of the steam holes as a reference line.

The amount of frothing depends on how much air is incorporated. Currently, most mainstream espresso machine steam wands have 3 or 4 holes, while some home-level machines have 1 or 2 holes. Generally, wands with more holes will have shorter frothing time, create stronger vortexes, and are easier to operate. Wands with fewer holes are more difficult because the longer frothing time requires more physical strength and more precise frothing angles. Typically, during the frothing stage, the steam wand is half-submerged. Taking a 4-hole wand as an example, usually 3 holes are in the milk while 1 hole is above the liquid surface.

Next is the control of steam power, which varies depending on the machine's boiler. Some machines have abundant steam pressure, while others are clearly insufficient even at maximum power. High steam power will heat the milk quickly and create strong vortexes, and vice versa.

FrontStreet Coffee's recommended method for controlling steam power is to first prepare the frothing angle, then slowly open the steam switch bit by bit until the milk in the pitcher forms a vortex, then fix that steam level. Of course, if you feel the steam power is insufficient or too strong later, you need to adjust appropriately. If your steam wand has very strong power, creating thin, dense, and highly fluid milk foam is very simple. Half-submerge the steam tip, position the frothing angle, turn on the steam switch, wait for the milk to create a vortex, and hear two "squeaks" (the squeaking sound indicates you're frothing milk foam - the longer the sound lasts, the thicker the foam becomes), then move the pitcher slightly upward to enter the smoothing stage.

In this stage, completely submerge all 4 steam holes in the foam layer, eliminating the "squeaking" sound while maintaining the vortex on the surface. The main purpose is to smooth and refine the foam, while the secondary purpose is to heat it to 55-65 degrees.

For machines that don't have strong steam power, FrontStreet Coffee's suggestion is to froth and smooth simultaneously. First, position the steam holes so they're just completely submerged in the milk, similarly angle it to create a vortex, then turn on the steam switch until a vortex appears. Then gradually move the pitcher downward bit by bit - "squeak," then smooth, then "squeak" again, then smooth again, until you've achieved the appropriate thickness.

Common Problems When Failing to Create Textured Patterns

After frothing the milk foam, common problems that prevent textured patterns include:

1. Excessive Integration

The more you integrate, the poorer the fluidity of the liquid surface becomes, making it more difficult to create textured patterns. Normally, integrating until the cup is 4/5 full is sufficient for creating convection textured patterns.

2. Foam Too Thin

Not everyone can handle overly thin foam. The most common issue is the "milk sinking" phenomenon, where there isn't enough foam floating on the surface, causing the flow to create holes in the surface油脂.

3. Too Close to Liquid Surface When Texturing

Some people have a habit of placing the pitcher spout against the ceramic cup rim when pouring patterns. If you texture patterns this way, the resulting lines will be very thick. The correct method should be to slightly raise the pitcher spout by 1 centimeter, at least avoiding contact with the ceramic cup.

4. Uneven Pattern Distribution

One possibility is that your left-right swinging amplitude of the pitcher is inconsistent. Another possibility is that your hand positioning has tilted the "pitcher bottom," causing the direction and force of the texturing to shift, resulting in one side being larger than the other. It's best to have a friend observe your movements from the side - they might be able to identify the actual problem.

Important Notice :

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FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473