Coffee Latte Art Tutorial: How to Perfect Milk Foam for Latte Art and Cappuccino

FrontStreet Coffee often says that while a latte may not taste better just because it has beautiful latte art, the existence of latte art can provide more experience for coffee drinkers, such as adding visual enjoyment! Therefore, many friends will practice day and night to be able to produce exquisite latte art.

But we need to know that beautiful latte art not only requires baristas to master latte art skills, but the quality of milk foam is also very important. Therefore, before we learn latte art skills, the more important thing is to learn how to froth milk foam for latte art! So, what kind of milk foam is most suitable for latte art?

1. Possessing Fluidity

When it comes to what kind of milk foam is most suitable for latte art, without thinking, it must be fluid milk foam! If we want to create more than just basic patterns like large hearts, then the milk foam must have high fluidity. To achieve this, we need to control the thickness of the milk foam, because the thicker the foam, the lower the fluidity; when the foam is thinner, the fluidity is higher.

However, being too thin is not good either. Because if the fluidity is too high, the patterns will easily float and become unstable during latte art creation, so we need to make it appropriately thicker. A thickness of about 1cm is sufficient. The thickness of milk foam is mainly determined by the amount/time of foaming during the milk frothing process. Although this is a principle that many friends understand, many friends cannot help but perform multiple foaming operations during actual frothing. For example, suddenly hissing a couple of times during the texturing process to increase the thickness of the milk foam. Here, FrontStreet Coffee shares a small trick to control milk foam frothing: leverage!

We can find a fulcrum between the milk pitcher and the steam wand, using this fulcrum to fix the milk pitcher, so that during frothing, we don't need to rely on our own strength to stabilize the pitcher, and naturally won't experience accidental foaming due to hand shaking.

2. Fine and Smooth

The fluidity of milk foam alone cannot make you create a satisfactory pattern. If the foam is too rough and separates from the milk too quickly, then you still can't make beautiful patterns!

So this requires great attention to the time we spend texturing the milk foam! After foaming, we need to immerse the steam wand in the milk to form a vortex, allowing this vortex to use suction to pull in and cut those large bubbles into countless tiny bubbles. The longer we spend texturing, the denser the bubbles become. The shorter the texturing time, the rougher the quality of the milk foam. How can you judge the quality of milk foam? Hey! It's simple. We can place the milk foam against backlight to see if it can reflect light like a mirror, whether it has a rich luster. If not, then it indicates that the foam particles are relatively dry and rough. In such cases, there's still a chance to salvage it, for example, by pouring between pitchers or shaking to eliminate the rough bubbles.

Then you only need to pay attention to extending the texturing time during the next milk foam frothing process. If the heating speed is too fast, causing the milk to reach the target temperature before the foam has time to become dense, then we can lower the milk's refrigeration temperature or reduce the refrigeration temperature to give the milk a lower starting temperature, thereby increasing the time for texturing the milk foam!

3. Not High "Moisture Content"

Although it's said to extend the texturing time, it can't be too long! Because heating milk foam mainly relies on water vapor, and their addition not only heats the milk but also dilutes it. If the frothing time is too long, it will add too much water to the milk, which not only dilutes the concentration but also makes the foam more likely to atomize during the latte art process, leading to "a complete mess" as shown in the picture below.

Layering can also cause "messy patterns" to occur. We can observe the milk foam that blends with the coffee. If it has high fluidity but also shows atomization, it's very likely due to excessive moisture (after all, layered foam doesn't have high fluidity). If it's a case of too much moisture, we can appropriately control the refrigeration temperature of the milk to reduce the texturing time, thereby minimizing the damage of water to the stability of the milk foam. So, above are the conditions that FrontStreet Coffee believes milk foam suitable for latte art should have: high fluidity, fine and smooth, and not high "moisture content"~ As for frothing techniques, interested friends can search directly on FrontStreet Coffee's official account~

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