How to Make Latte Coffee? Step-by-Step Guide to Latte Preparation! What's the Best Milk for Latte? Which Coffee Beans Are Ideal for Milk Coffee?

With the arrival of autumn and winter, hot lattes have once again become everyone's favorite. After all, who wouldn't want to enjoy a heartwarming cup of coffee in the chilly (perhaps exaggerated) weather? Especially when it's so sweet! That's why many friends have started making hot lattes at home. And because of this, FrontStreet Coffee has received many questions from friends about problems they encounter when making lattes!

Among the inquiries, the majority express that their homemade lattes are unsatisfactory in taste, unable to match the aromatic richness and sweetness of café-made lattes. Either the coffee's bitterness is too prominent, or the milk flavor overpowers the coffee taste. So today, FrontStreet Coffee will share how to make a delicious hot latte with balanced flavor, rich aroma, and high sweetness!

1. Ingredient Selection

"Latte" may be composed of just two ingredients—milk and espresso—but achieving that characteristic mellow, non-bitter flavor requires considerable effort. Many friends struggle with making good lattes because they often focus on the "assembly" of ingredients while neglecting selection. Little do they know that ingredient choice and technique mastery are equally important for a delicious latte. After all, the quality of any dish doesn't solely come from the cooking process. For coffee, the choice of beans will determine the entire flavor profile of the cup! Therefore, to make a delicious hot latte, the first step is selecting suitable coffee beans.

Because lattes add a large amount of milk to balance the coffee flavor, the requirements for coffee bean roast level are quite demanding. If coffee beans are roasted too lightly, with fewer reactions occurring during roasting, the extracted coffee flavor will easily be masked by the milk's taste. Additionally, just as red flowers need green leaves as a backdrop, the sweetness of a latte also needs some bitterness to stand out. Therefore, when selecting beans for milk-based coffees, FrontStreet Coffee recommends choosing medium-dark to dark roasted beans. These beans have prominent caramelized flavors that can stand up to milk. If you don't want it too bitter, you can directly choose medium-dark roasted beans. For example, the Warm Sun Blend used at FrontStreet Coffee is a medium-dark roasted bean! Coffee extracted at this roast level not only lacks excessive burnt bitterness but also resists being overpowered by milk. Most importantly, it has rich oils—perfect for both latte art and flavor, achieving two goals at once.

Milk is the other "protagonist" of a latte besides espresso, accounting for up to 80% of the drink, so its selection is equally crucial. However, unlike coffee beans, milk selection should be based on your coffee's flavor! Whole milk is naturally the first choice. What we need to select is the most suitable milk among various whole milk options for your current coffee beans! Milk from different producers has distinct advantages—some have high sweetness, others offer rich texture and strong milk flavor... It's important to understand that these advantages don't necessarily complement all coffees. When the milk we use doesn't match the current beans, the coffee not only fails to shine but may even have the opposite effect. Even when both beans and milk are top-quality, their combination might simply not taste good.

For example: if you're using medium-dark roasted beans with prominent extracted coffee flavors and overall rich body, but you pair them with milk that also has strong flavor and high body, the resulting latte will feel overly thick and cloying due to the excessive intensity and body from both components. Therefore, such beans need to be paired with milk that has less heavy texture but higher sweetness. This is why finding milk that complements your beans is essential! For milk varieties, you can refer to the article "Milk Review"—just reference the brands and milk values. For texture and flavor aspects, we recommend purchasing and trying them yourself, as the article was based on comparisons using FrontStreet Coffee's Warm Sun Blend.

2. Preparation

Now that we've covered ingredients, let's move on to preparation! As the foundation of a latte, we first need to ensure the espresso has a balanced sweet-sour-bitter profile. This might be somewhat difficult to understand, so simply put: it's espresso that tastes neither sharp nor burnt, with high concentration but still palatable! To achieve this, we need to find a suitable extraction formula! FrontStreet Coffee typically recommends starting with the widely circulated golden ratio formula as an initial adjustment target—for example, extracting twice the coffee weight in liquid using 18-20g of coffee grounds within 25-30 seconds (lighter roasts can take longer). Then make fine adjustments based on the coffee's taste. If you're unsure how to adjust, friends can refer to the article "How to Adjust Espresso" for guidance.

Once we've perfected the espresso, the remaining task is preparing hot milk! Milk can be prepared with or without foam. After all, for home coffee making, foam isn't that essential. So if we want to avoid the hassle, we simply need to heat the milk to the 60°C-68°C range to activate the sweetness of lactose. If we want to achieve a finer, creamier texture, we can choose to froth the milk! However, since milk frothing is quite complex, we can refer to the detailed article "Milk Frothing Guide" for comprehensive instructions. (Frothing possible without coffee machine)

The final step in making a delicious latte is finding the perfect ratio between milk and coffee! What mainly needs adjustment is the milk amount, since once espresso is extracted, there's only so much of it. Compared to adjusting extraction, it's naturally easier to modify the milk quantity. However, FrontStreet Coffee doesn't recommend directly applying others' ratio data because everyone uses different coffee beans and milk. Even if they're the same, everyone's preferred flavor and concentration differ. A latte that others find delicious might not necessarily suit you. Therefore, adjusting according to your own taste is most appropriate.

Typically, latte coffee has an approximate ratio range of 1:4 to 1:8. But when it comes to adjustment, it's essentially just a matter of adding more or less milk. If you find the milk flavor too strong, use less milk. If you find the coffee flavor too intense or bitter, add more milk. When you discover that at a certain ratio, the latte's flavor is exceptional and perfectly suits your taste, then congratulations—this ratio is your golden formula that suits you, your beans, and your milk. You've successfully created a latte that best matches your taste and ingredients!

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Important Notice :

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FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473