Today’s is a quick newsletter on free pour latte art.
I’ve always found this skill fascinating. It has a magical quality which produces results of wondrous aesthetic beauty and also demonstrates the quality of the textured milk produced by the person behind the coffee machine. When I first started practising producing latte art I went through about 20 litres of milk before I even started to get decent results. I’m clearly a slow learner.
There are three things I would like to discuss about latte art. The first is that quality art depends on high quality textured milk. Unfortunately it’s difficult to write about how to produce good textured milk other than to say that it must have small air bubbles that are well mixed into the fluid. Listen to the sound of a good barista texturing milk and you’ll hear a subtle sucking sound as the steam wand is applied just below the surface of the milk. That soft sound means that small amounts of air are being drawn under the surface. Loud slurping noises indicate that large amounts of air are being incorporated meaning that big bubbles will be produced… what you’d expect when you order a cappuccino, but not what I think of in terms of the silky milk which is used in a great flat white or latte.
The second discussion point is a basic one about pouring technique. If you want the milk to stain the surface (that is produce art) then the spout of the jug must be close to the surface of the milk. As the milk gains velocity due to acceleration from gravity it tends to dive under the surface of the espresso and mix into the espresso. It’s obvious and important to note that in order to get the spout close enough to the surface of the coffee to produce latte art one needs two things to occur: the overall level of the coffee drink must be high enough relative to the edge of the cup (a certain amount of milk must already have been poured in to the cup and tipping the cup also helps) and one must lower the jug spout as far as is practically possible!
The final discussion point is that when texturing a lot of milk (say for the pair of coffees I make for my children each morning) I use a technique called milk saving. The problem with texturing a large jug of milk is that it is very difficult to properly incorporate microfoam through the whole jug. Milk saving involves pouring milk between two jugs in order to more effectively integrate the liquid milk and foam bubbles. The technique is very helpful.