5 tips to make your coffee art more perfect

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Coffee latte art is the most attractive skill. Many novices enter the coffee industry because they want to learn the unique skill of "latte art". However, coffee latte art is easy to learn but difficult to master. To master this skill, you need a lot of practice and perseverance. Here are some tips for practicing coffee latte art!

1. Make some milk froth! Make some milk froth! Make some milk froth!

Making milk foam looks difficult, but in fact, the most difficult part of coffee latte art is making espresso. Even if many people have become latte art masters, the espresso they make is just good-looking but not practical. Unfortunately, when people watch latte art videos, the shots of espresso usually don't exceed two seconds.

But today we are not talking about Espresso, but about milk foam, which is actually very easy to make. To make fine and smooth milk foam, you need to pay attention to three details:

1. The angle of the steam wand

As long as you find the right angle of the steam wand in the milk tank, you can easily form a vortex when frothing milk. The vortex will suck in all the coarse bubbles, tear them apart, and make your milk foam fine and smooth enough. At the same time, the vortex can also make the hot milk in the lower layer of the milk tank fully blend with the milk foam on the upper layer. The milk foam is fine and highly fused, so it is easy to whip it. Insert the steam wand in the middle of the milk tank at an angle, and then move it slightly to the left or right, so that the landing point of the steam wand is in the middle of the center and the tank wall.

2. Appropriate dispatch

After turning on the steam wand, you should be able to hear a hissing sound of air coming in, which means it is whipping. If not, lower the milk tank as soon as possible so that the steam wand's air outlet is a little higher. If the angle mentioned above is perfect, a vortex will form at this time.

The real difficulty lies in the amount of air intake. Different degrees of whipped milk foam are required to make different milk coffees, and different milk foams are also required to make different latte art patterns. Usually, the milk foam for cappuccino is thicker, so you can try to make a simple heart shape or tulip. The milk foam for latte can be thinner, so you can try more complex patterns, such as tulips, roses, swans, etc.

3. Temperature of milk foam

The best temperature for milk foam is between 55-65℃. Some people say that low-temperature milk foam lasts longer. Regardless of whether it is true or not, if the temperature of the milk foam is too low, it will be cold when you serve it to customers after you finish making the foam. What is the point of making beautiful foam? If the temperature of the milk foam is high enough, the protein in the milk will denature and harden, which will make the milk foam very rough and dry, and the sweetness and smoothness will be greatly reduced, and it will not be possible to make beautiful foam.

2. Practice the basics first, then talk about skills

Integration is something that many novices tend to neglect. If the integration of a cup of latte art is not good enough, even the most detailed pattern will lose points because it will look out of harmony.

If you think of the milk foam as a paintbrush, the well-blended coffee and milk mixture is the canvas. If you want to draw a good-looking pattern, the blank canvas cannot be messy or stained at all.

When drawing latte art, there are two injection heights: 5 cm and 0.5 cm from the liquid surface. When blending coffee liquid and milk foam, keep the injection height at least 5 cm to pierce the fat on the top. When the blending is completed, the cup is already 40-70% full. The degree of blending depends on what pattern you want to draw: the fuller the blending, the stronger the surface tension of the "canvas", the finer the pattern drawn, and the smaller the white area, and vice versa.

3. Push down, push down, push down again

Once the mixture is complete, you can start latte art. To create a perfect latte art pattern, the mouth of your latte art cylinder needs to be very close to the liquid surface (about 0.5 cm). This requires you to tilt the cup at the same time, otherwise, the cup is too deep and it will be difficult to form a latte art pattern. Lower the water column, don't rush for success, and don't shake it too exaggeratedly. When the milk foam slides into the coffee liquid, white lines will naturally form.

In addition, you also need to consider your posture of holding the cup, holding it, cupping it or pinching it? It is most important to find a posture that makes you feel comfortable and natural. Latte art itself should be a relaxing and comfortable thing.

4. Take short videos

I'm not asking you to post it on TikTok or Kuaishou to show off, but to find someone to help you film the whole process of your latte art, and then analyze and summarize it yourself. Observe whether each step is perfect, whether the fusion is appropriate, whether the embossing is in place... Believe me, if you observe your latte art process from another angle, you can see more shortcomings and defects that you don't usually notice.

5. Perseverance and practice

Finally, I have to give you some chicken soup. There is a legend in the world: it takes 10,000 hours of training to become a top athlete. This is the "10,000-hour rule". There are skills and tricks to coffee latte art, but there are no shortcuts. Even if you have been practicing for a week or two and still haven't pulled out a decent pattern, don't worry. Many people took nearly a month to make their first heart shape (such as the editor). If you want to become a top latte art master, it is impossible to succeed without a few years of persistent practice and summary. Practice a few cups a day, practice makes perfect -

Finally, I hope the above tips can help you. If you feel that you have reached a bottleneck and can never break through or have any questions about latte art, you can leave a message to the editor!

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