Latte art practice for beginners | Common questions about heart-shaped coffee latte art

Once you get into latte art, it's like a deep sea. I don't know how many stupid things I did for latte art. Oh, the past scenes, watching latte art videos, studying latte art skills, like a madman, pouring milk, foaming, injecting practice, practicing water, practicing fusion, pushing patterns... In order to pull out a good-looking pattern, I practiced and tortured myself every day like a (shen) enthusiast (jing) (bing)~ As a former latte art enthusiast, today I will solve the difficult and complicated problems in the hearts of novices practicing latte art~

This is the pattern in your mind.

The result is this...

Why……?

① How to place the steam wand?

Before talking about frothing milk, let's first talk about how to place the steam wand for frothing milk. Generally, the steam wand should be placed with the mouth of the milk jug as a fulcrum at 12 o'clock, and the steam wand should be placed at 2-3 o'clock or 9-10 o'clock of the milk jug. This arrangement allows the steam to rotate as quickly as possible and form a small vortex when the milk is frothed, so that the thicker milk foam can be rolled into the milk, making the milk dense after frothing. (Of course, the angle of the steam wand placement varies from person to person~~)

② How to make milk foam?

After finding the right position, place the steam pipe under the surface of the milk, open the steam pipe, and beat the steam into the milk to make milk foam. You will hear a "sizzling" sound. (This is the sound of milk foaming) Many novices always think that the more milk foam they make, the better, so the more "sizzling" sounds they make, but they don't know that the longer the foaming time, the rougher the foam will become and it will be impossible to make latte art. In fact, it only takes 4-5 seconds to pump air into the milk foam. Then raise the milk tank a little bit to let the milk and foam rotate and blend in the vortex and merge into one. At this time, you will no longer hear the "sizzling" sound. When the milk reaches the ideal temperature, turn off the steam pipe, and you will find that the big foam just now is gone. In fact, a layer of microfoam has formed on the surface of the milk, and that layer of foam is the material we want to make latte art.

Another point is the depth of the steam wand under the milk. The deeper the better is not necessarily the case. After all, the purpose of whipping milk is to beat air into the milk. If the steam wand is too deep, it cannot come into contact with the air. Of course, it cannot be too shallow either, because if it is too shallow, the milk may splash when the steam is turned on, or the steam may be too strong and the amount of foam may be too much, and the liquid surface may be covered with rough small bubbles.

Generally, we use the insertion of about 1 cm as a benchmark. If the steam from the coffee machine is too strong, the vortex formed is too large or turbulence is formed, then you can put the steam wand a little deeper. If the steam from the coffee machine is not strong enough, then you can place the steam wand in a shallower position so that the milk can form a small vortex as quickly as possible without rotating too violently or forming turbulence.

③How to integrate?

Good fusion can directly reflect the taste of a cup of coffee, and also make the whole cup of coffee beautiful. First, tilt the coffee cup 45 degrees, and pour the flow into the cup consistently. Start with a fixed point, then try to pour at a constant speed, high and low, and in circles, and finally pour at the same time. Pay attention to slowly straighten the hand holding the cup (remember that the water flow cannot be interrupted before the latte art). In addition, pour the milk lightly at the beginning, and use thinner milk to drive the coffee liquid in your cup to blend. The blended milk coffee has fluidity. In addition, the magnitude of the fusion has a lot to do with the thickness of the milk foam you make. The main reason is that the thicker the milk foam, the worse the fluidity in the fusion. At this time, a larger magnitude is needed to ensure that the surface of the milk coffee has fluidity. Second, I believe that many people always don’t know where the end point of the fusion is when they first start practicing fusion? In fact, when you can see that the fusion of milk white silk is about to float to the surface, you can basically stop the fusion.

④What is the temperature of the milk?

Generally, we recommend a temperature of 60-65°C. If the temperature is too high, it is easy to burn yourself and the milk foam will be unstable. If the temperature of the milk is too high, the protein in it will change, and the taste will not be very good. Speaking of the temperature of the milk, let me also talk about why I like to use whole milk to make milk foam. In fact, it is mainly because of its high fat and protein content that it can make more and smoother and denser milk foam. In addition, the milk must be frozen at 0-4°C, because frozen milk can prolong the mixing time when making foam, so that the milk and foam are mixed properly, and the foam is more beautiful.

Finally, add a solid pull step.

【Steps to pull solid】

① Lower the milk jug close to the cup and start pouring from the center of the liquid surface.

② While the milk cup in your left hand is straightened, increase the flow rate of the milk jug in your right hand and straighten it slowly. At this time, you will see the milk foam floating on the surface, slowly forming a circle and slowly expanding.

③ When the cup is almost at 180 °, the circle of milk foam has been formed. Raise the milk tank in place while reducing the water flow (be careful not to push forward while raising it), and use the impact of the water flow to press the upper layer of coffee liquid downward. At this time, you will see a heart-shaped groove appear in the original circle, and the water flows on both sides gather in the middle.

④ When the heart-shaped groove appears, you can push it forward so that the pointed heart-shaped tail will appear.

⑤ A solid was born.

This is so-called~ As the saying goes, it is useless to talk without practice~~ After all, it is a skill that only practice makes perfect. Anyway, if you want to practice latte art, there is only one word "practice". Latte art is to summarize in practice and constantly improve in summary~ Hehe~ Maybe you will be the master of latte art in the next second~

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