Can You Add Milk to Pour-Over Coffee? The Difference Between Latte and Café au Lait

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"I'd like a pour-over coffee, with milk."

- What? Pour-over coffee is meant to taste the original flavor! Adding milk takes away its soul!

Today, as specialty coffee becomes popular and many people pursue the original flavors in coffee, quite a few people think that drinking coffee with milk shows a lack of appreciation for specialty coffee.

However! The emergence of the term "specialty coffee" is meant to encourage everyone to drink higher-quality coffee and experience cleaner flavors under traditional coffee extraction methods. It doesn't require everyone to avoid adding milk.

Throughout several centuries of coffee history, people have used milk as coffee's soul companion to make coffee more delicious. More than two hundred years before the appearance of lattes made with espresso, people in European regions already had the practice of adding milk to drip-brewed/immersion-extracted coffee.

According to letters written by the French writer Madame de Sévigné in the 1690s, a café in Vienna, Austria began selling milk coffee as early as the 1680s. This was the first café in history to sell milk coffee, and this drink is precisely the coffee product that many coffee shops are now "reviving" — Café au lait.

However, many coffee shops use espresso when making café au lait, so many people mistakenly equate café au lait with caffe latte.

In reality, café au lait is made by adding milk to pour-over coffee/French press coffee, and the milk doesn't need to be aerated and frothed. (The practice of steaming milk only appeared after the espresso machine was invented.)

Café au lait might be the most common and easiest milk coffee to make, so this method quickly spread throughout Europe. Around the 18th century, Japanese people brought the popular European culture back to their country, becoming one of the first Asian countries to develop café culture. Café au lait became one of the most popular products in various cafés. In the earliest cafés in China, café au lait was also very popular.

Initially, the purpose of café au lait was to neutralize the undesirable flavors in coffee. However, as people began to pay more attention to coffee bean quality and roasting, adding milk to brewed coffee became more sophisticated. The addition of hot milk not only neutralizes the bitterness in coffee but also creates more different flavor experiences.

Based on different flavor performances of coffee, adding different amounts and different milk fat/protein content can make coffee exhibit new flavors.

Because café au lait has different versions around the world, there are also many different ways to make it, but regardless of which version, they all离不开 using drip/immersion-extracted coffee and hot milk.

The insistence on using hot milk is because when milk is heated, the lactose in it releases a caramel-like sweetness, which not only enhances the smooth and full-bodied texture of coffee but also adds sweetness to the coffee.

In terms of coffee concentration, there aren't really many strict rules. You can make it however you like, and café owners can make it however they think is appropriate — it's that casual. As long as the drinker likes it, it's a good café au lait.

With changes in coffee consumption trends, although more and more people are pursuing the original flavor of coffee, milk and coffee remain an inseparable pair in many people's hearts, regardless of how they are mixed with coffee.

The emergence of specialty coffee certainly hopes that everyone can drink coffee with increasingly better flavor and quality, but regardless of the flavor, for most consumers, not everyone can distinguish these differences.

Adding milk to pour-over coffee is a completely normal thing. Everyone has different requirements for coffee strength and taste. Perhaps a coffee that meets the golden cup extraction standards on paper might still be too strong for someone. Or maybe after adding hot milk, they discover flavors they prefer, which might spark more interest in specialty coffee?

Coffee is a very inclusive beverage. What matters is that the drinker likes it and enjoys drinking it — that's the fundamental principle!

Image source: Internet

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