Why is Milk Pitching Necessary for Coffee Latte Art? What are the Benefits of Milk Pitching? How to Create Fine Microfoam? What are the Key Points for Latte Art?

The Art of Milk Pitching: Enhancing Your Latte Art Experience

After frothing the milk, don't rush into latte art. Instead, pour the milk from one pitcher into another before beginning your art creation! This is a scene you can observe in many coffee shops.

In the industry, this technique has a professional term—what FrontStreet Coffee often refers to as "milk pitching."

What is the Purpose of Milk Pitching?

Similar to most product creation processes, latte art demands attention to both material quality and technical skill. The act of milk pitching not only enhances material quality in certain situations but also helps latte art patterns form more easily. FrontStreet Coffee will first address material quality! Since we're creating patterns with milk foam, the material naturally refers to the foam itself!

Essentially, milk foam consists of countless tiny bubbles formed by steam and encapsulated by milk proteins (primarily). Setting technique aside, when we use finer, silkier milk foam (referring to foam with excellent fluidity) for latte art, we can more easily create exquisite and intricate patterns! However, many times, we might make certain mistakes that result in foam that isn't fine enough, making it difficult to create beautiful patterns! For example: operational errors during frothing might result in poorly prepared foam with many large bubbles, creating a rough overall texture; or the foam might be over-frothed, leading to poor fluidity; or it might be left sitting too long after frothing, causing the foam to clump and separate from the milk, rendering it unusable!

In situations like these, milk pitching becomes an excellent option! Because the pouring action creates impact force, this force brings three optimizations to the milk foam: First, the foam will be carried by this force into the milk, reintegrating; Second, the impact force will cause many rough large bubbles to burst, leaving only strong, fine bubbles; Third, clumped and hardened foam will be broken up by this force.

After optimization, the milk foam regains its fluidity. With the disappearance of rough large bubbles and clumped foam, the overall texture becomes finer—absolutely perfect for latte art!

Why Does Milk Pitching Reduce the Difficulty of Latte Art?

To put it artistically, latte art is the process of using milk foam as paint to create art on a "canvas" of crema! But for the milk foam to float on the crema surface and form lines, the pitcher must be tilted to a certain degree, bringing the spout as close as possible to the liquid surface. This reduces impact force and allows the foam to float on the surface. In other words, the pitcher acts as a paintbrush in this "art studio."

Besides tilting the pitcher, increasing the amount of milk during the pour to raise the liquid level is another technique commonly used by baristas. With sufficient integration and an appropriate liquid height in the cup, the spout can approach the surface even without excessive pitcher tilting. However, this technique only works for creating basic patterns! For patterns that require etching or more complex combination designs, we cannot integrate too much, as this would reduce the available drawing space! In situations like these, milk pitching becomes extremely valuable! By limiting the milk quantity and using a larger pitcher, we can maximize the tilting angle of the pitcher, enabling the creation of more complex latte art patterns! Many friends might ask: why not just use a large-capacity pitcher to froth the milk directly? Wouldn't that be more convenient?

While that seems logical in theory, larger pitchers require more milk due to increased space for frothing. The amount of milk we need for latte art is far less than what a large pitcher requires for proper frothing. Therefore, frothing with a small pitcher first and then pouring into a larger pitcher for latte art represents the perfect solution! However, we need to understand that the milk pitching technique also requires proper execution! For example, the pouring height shouldn't be too high, otherwise it will create additional bubbles; after pitching, the foam needs to be used quickly because it will dissipate faster!

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