How to Make Delicious Latte Coffee? Creative Coffee Making Methods and Recipes

Professional Coffee Knowledge Exchange. For more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat public account: cafe_style)

For more specialty coffee beans, please add FrontStreet Coffee's private WeChat, WeChat ID: qjcoffeex

2022 WBC World Barista Championship Results

The 2022 WBC World Barista Championship concluded successfully a few days ago! Let's first take a quick look at this year's award winners:

1. Anthony Douglas, Australia

2. Morgan Eckroth, United States

3. Claire Wallace, United Kingdom

4. Takayuki Ishitani, Japan

5. Benjamin Put, Canada

6. Patrik Rolf, Sweden

In recent years, when watching this type of competition, this expression always comes to mind:

Last year's WBC champion, Deigo Campos, used hearing and touch to have judges wear headphones while watching videos and listening to music, enhancing their perception of sweetness. He also incorporated the tactile sensation of soft balls (presumably, as details weren't specified) to enhance the smooth mouthfeel of the coffee.

This year, Australian competitor Anthony Douglas brought a laboratory setup to the competition stage?!

Creative Coffee Performance

For the creative coffee portion, he first extracted three shots of espresso using 80-hour anaerobic natural processed Chiroso coffee beans from El Diviso Estate in Colombia's Huila region.

Two espresso shots were mixed with date syrup (dates and water in a 1:1 ratio, slow-cooked at 60°C for 3 hours under vacuum and dehydrated), dehydrated milk, and hibiscus tea, then placed in a nitrogen canister for water bath heating. Nitrogen infusion was then used to give the coffee a nectar-like texture.

One espresso shot was mixed with lactic-fermented passion fruit liquid, honey from El Diviso, and heated using a magnetic stirrer to highlight the drink's sweetness and honey notes. While heating and mixing the ingredients, Anthony first proceeded with the milk coffee portion.

Unlike other competitors who use frozen purified milk to enhance coffee sweetness, Anthony first applied milk freeze-vacuum dehydration technology to extract milk powder with 900% purity from the same variety of milk. This was then mixed with milk in a 1:10 ratio, doubling the sugar, fat, and protein content in the milk. The milk was heated to 55°C to activate its high sweetness.

At this point, some might start feeling confused! Actually, this is just conventional milk powder production technology. Existing milk powder production involves vacuum-concentrating milk to 1/4 of its original volume to become concentrated milk, then spraying it as a mist into a drying chamber with hot air to dehydrate it. However, the purity of the milk powder produced by competitor Anthony is actually not as high as regular milk powder.

Regular milk powder requires only 8 grams added to 300-400ml of water to obtain milk close to its original concentration, while competitor Anthony needed to add 30g of milk powder to 300g of milk to double its concentration. If using regular milk powder purity, only 3-4g would be needed.

The advantage of Anthony's approach is that, compared to directly using purified milk, adding milk powder this way makes the milk concentration controllable. The concentration can be adjusted based on the flavor profile after coffee extraction to achieve milk that complements the coffee. If purified milk is used directly, the coffee would need to complement the milk.

The espresso for the milk coffee portion also used 80-hour anaerobic natural processed Chiroso coffee beans from El Diviso Estate in Colombia's Huila region. To ensure more even extraction, Anthony used the Weiss distribution technique. The needles on the distributor can cover the entire basket surface with each rotation, breaking up clumps from all angles and ensuring even coffee distribution.

22.5g of coffee grounds extracted 38g of espresso liquid in 28 seconds, presenting flavors of blackberry, cherry, red wine, juicy texture, and persistent red wine tannin finish (in simple terms, a pleasant astringency). When mixed with 55°C milk, the coffee displayed flavors of red cherry, cream caramel, and chocolate mousse.

After mixing, it wasn't ready for immediate consumption. First, an aroma dome was placed to intensify the flavors, and drinking began only when the beverage temperature dropped to 50°C.

After the milk coffee tasting, Anthony returned to the creative coffee portion. He infused the water-bath heated materials with nitrogen for rapid cooling and released them into the cup, then added the magnetically heated materials and mixed evenly. The mixture was divided into cups and covered with aroma discs to concentrate the flavors in the cup.

Only upon Anthony's signal could the judges open the discs and drink in three consecutive sips. Yes, how coffee is consumed during competition is decided by the competitor, and judges must follow accordingly. This creative coffee ultimately presented flavors of plum, raisin, cranberry, and toffee.

The Evolution of Barista Competitions

I'm not sure when barista competitions started becoming increasingly complex... from the initial competition over coffee bean quality, to competition over brewing water, to competition over high-tech innovations...

Even Ben Bicknell, WBC head judge and Melbourne coffee consultant, stated that while such competitions provide a unique form of expression for the industry, they are far removed from "normal" café culture.

"They're not something you would experience in everyday cafés. But they provide a platform where people can really explore and innovate, and then all of this starts to permeate through other parts of the industry. However, these explorations and innovations—maybe in a few years, people will see some of these techniques or these conversations starting to appear in everyday specialty coffee shops."

The Theme of Trust

Anthony's competition theme was trust. At the beginning of the competition, he asked everyone a question: "When was the last time you drank a coffee that tasted exactly as the barista described? That must have been a wonderful experience." Whether a cup of coffee can achieve this depends on trust. When a barista makes each cup of coffee, it's like making a promise to the customer.

When a barista presents a coffee with its expected flavors, they are fulfilling that promise. It is this trust that maintains the relationship between barista and customer. We all love specialty coffee, and only trust can keep the coffee industry thriving. Trust also connects baristas and customers. And only through continuous learning can this trust be sustained.

A good experience needs to be built on trust between customers and baristas, and trust between baristas and coffee bean suppliers. The "specialty" in specialty coffee is not just a reflection of the high quality of coffee beans and coffee products, but also an important element of a series of quality services. Whether coffee tastes good, whether it can score high, and whether it can attract consumer attention all require professionalism and service to interpret.

Perhaps we need to look at future barista competitions from a different perspective—not just focusing on product preparation, but on these competitors' philosophies and propositions about coffee.

Image source: YouTube (World Coffee Championships)

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473