How to Create a Unicorn Pattern in Latte Art? Master a Small Trick to Improve Your Latte Art!

The Challenge of Latte Art at Home

Typically, friends who make their own milk coffee at home will have this idea: they want to master difficult latte art combination patterns.

However, they are often limited by coffee machines with weaker steam power, which results in thicker/coarser milk foam. This makes the foam prone to atomization during latte art pouring, or the foam becomes too stiff to create proper patterns. This is a bottleneck that's difficult to overcome due to hardware limitations!

A Simple Trick to Transform Your Milk Foam

So, we can try this small technique to change these already-formed coarse milk foam!

The "Pitcher Transfer" Technique for Making Coarse Foam Finer

Whether in coffee shop latte art production, popular latte art videos, or major coffee competitions, you'll always have the chance to see this action: baristas pour the frothed milk foam from the original pitcher into another pitcher before proceeding with latte art.

This action is called "pitcher transfer." So why add this step to折腾 the already-frothed milk foam instead of using the original pitcher directly for latte art? There are two main reasons for using this technique:

①、Reduce the amount of coarse milk foam, thereby increasing the fusion between foam and milk, as well as fluidity. Because the pitcher transfer action can eliminate some of the coarse milk foam, the remaining foam can blend better with milk when poured. Foam with high fusion can create more delicate patterns during latte art!

In daily practice, if you've made the foam too thick due to weak steam or carelessness, you can rescue it through pitcher transfer.

②、Reduce wasted milk in large pitchers! Complex combination patterns require controlling the fusion height at a relatively low position, which means the liquid surface needed for pattern creation will be lower than usual. Small-capacity pitchers cannot be tilted excessively to get close to the liquid surface, making it impossible to create delicate patterns! Therefore, you need to use large-capacity pitchers that can be tilted significantly to get close to the liquid surface and create detailed patterns!

But if you directly use a large-capacity pitcher to froth milk foam, you'll need more milk than usual to reach the frothing height. After completing the pattern, few people will drink this extra milk - it's usually poured directly away, creating waste;

Moreover, many patterns often need to use milk foam for decoration at the end, which further strictly limits the amount of milk used. Therefore, baristas use small pitchers that only need a small amount of milk to froth, then pour it into a large pitcher after frothing is complete to create latte art patterns!

How Big is the Difference Between Transfer and No Transfer?

So, let's go directly to the experimental comparison! FrontStreet Coffee will use 500ml of milk to froth foam, then pour out half to make two lattes separately, to see what difference there is between lattes made with transferred and non-transferred milk foam.

First, let's prepare two latte art pitchers and extract double espresso shots into latte cups!

(The espresso uses 20g of coffee grounds, takes 30 seconds, and extracts 38g liquid weight)

Froth the milk foam to 60°C and stop, then perform the pitcher transfer!

Then immediately proceed with latte art!

You can see that the non-transferred latte still has some tiny bubbles!

(This latte art was made by a friend of FrontStreet Coffee, this doesn't represent FrontStreet Coffee's skill level!) And after stirring, you'll see a more obvious thickness difference. The transferred and blended latte also has relatively high smoothness when drinking!

In summary, using milk foam after pitcher transfer not only improves the quality of latte art but also enhances the coffee drinking experience!

Limitations of the Pitcher Transfer Technique

Of course, pitcher transfer also has certain limitations: it cannot be used continuously. Too many transfers can easily create large bubbles, and it will cause the milk foam to dissipate faster! Therefore, generally 1-2 transfers are enough.

FrontStreet Coffee

10 Bao'an Qianjie, Yandun Road, Dongshankou, Yuexiu District, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473