Wave Tulips

Wave tulips for your latte art viewing pleasure. 

Latte Art Tulip Crazy

Here's a collage of 13 latte art tulips I poured over the past week.  I've been having fun working on my technique with these, often trying to start with a rosetta-ish wave that ends up framing the tulip.  The other things I try to focus on are "pushing" each layer into the next to place them appropriately, and making sure that each layer of textured milk first gets dropped into darker, undisturbed espresso crema so that it ends up with great definition.

UPS logo

This morning a group of people came into the restaurant for breakfast and I noticed that they were wearing airline pilot's wings that said "UPS" on their jackets.  After they made some random comment about "always being surrounded by brown", I knew they definitely were a UPS flight crew.  So I of course couldn't resist the urge to do some logo latte art etching for them!

Kung Fu Panda

Yesterday someone helped me out of my creative downturn and suggested Po from Kung Fu Panda on the Latte Art Requests page.  I tried it out this morning and would have spent more time on better detail, but we had a busy breakfast crowd at ESS.  Here he is!

Tulip Season

I have to admit, I haven't really done a lot of latte art etching lately because I've been focusing so much on practicing my free-pour latte art.  But if you give me some suggestions on the Latte Art Requests page, I'd be more willing to post some new designs!  Here are some fun tulips I did today:

Fun with Fire

After doing the fire-breathing dragon a few times, I wanted to see what else was possible to etch with a fire theme.  Here's what I came up with... Someone shooting a fireball out of his hands, like in old-school Street Fighter:

And roasting a hot dog over a campfire.  Not as cool, but you can sorta see it:

Free Pour Collage

Here are a bunch of latte art pours I did over the last few days.  Like I said in the previous post, I've been trying to work on rosettas a bit, with pleasing success.  Have a great Memorial Day weekend!

Slowing Down Rosetta Pours

In my eternal quest to pour the perfect latte art rosetta, I decided that I would once again try to slow down my pour speed and control my movements better.  The result?  More symmetry, definition, fatter rosetta leaves.  I like these two lattes poured for customers today in the coffee shop:

Rosettas To-Go

This morning I poured these two rosettas in paper coffee cups to-go.  Strange that they both bend the same way - I think it's due to the way that I hold, tilt, and level out the cup while I pour.  It doesn't happen as often with a ceramic mug that I hold by the handle.

Latte Art is Profitable!

I made these cortados for a couple of guys during lunch last week.  They were sitting outside, so I didn't talk to them during their meal, but after they were done they came up to the coffee bar.  They said they were so interested in the latte art that they wanted to order two more drinks just to get a mini-demonstration! 

Coca Cola Logo

A group from Coca-Cola had a luncheon at ESS and of course ordered up some cappuccinos and lattes with their dessert.  I felt the need to do some themed latte art, and etched "Coke" in the classic script with the ribbon, and I also etched a Coke bottle in another drink (but forgot to take a picture).

Atlanta Food & Wine Festival Logo

The Atlanta Food & Wine Festival is going on right now!  So many visiting chefs and foodies have swarmed Empire State South and Midtown Atlanta.  Good thing is, most of them love coffee too.

Video on Patch.com

 

Check out the video segment that Patch.com did after the writer, Ashley, came in for a lunch and loved the latte art she and her group got in their coffee drinks!

Daisy

I revisited the daisy design and realized that I like it better with one extra layer to frame the flower.  Laying down that third layer of milk allowed for the second one to get more definition and look more like leaves of the daisy flower.

Dragon and Tulip

Poured and etched these lattes earlier in the week.  I quite like the tulip in the second cup, and of course the fire-breathing dragon is always fun to do!  I think next time I'll try to give the dragon more detail by giving him some tiny dragon arms.

Atlanta Hawks Logo

Another entry from the Latte Art Requests page.  Although this may look a little like Pac Man, it is in fact one of the old-school Atlanta Hawks logos.  I think I like it better than the current one. 

Blog Mentions

A couple of weeks ago a couple came in with their beautiful baby twin girls and I just had to do some custom latte art for Kahki's cappuccino.  Check it out and read about their experience on their blog.

Recently I also got a little shout-out on strutten.com for latte art creations.

Visiting Intelly

Last week I was in Chicago and decided I need to visit an Intelligentsia coffee shop for the first time.  I made it over to their Millennium Park location and ordered an espresso macchiato for my wife and a Chemex Kone pourover of the El Pino for myself.  I was thoroughly impressed with the look of the shop, their coffee bar setup, the friendliness and knowledge of the baristas, the taste of my coffee, and of course the nice little latte art tulip poured in Sarah's macchiato.

How-To Tuesdays: Daisy - Video

It's been a while since I did a How-To Tuesday.  This one comes at the request of Angelica, who also wanted to see Pikachu in a latte.

To etch a daisy:

1. Pour a two-tiered tulip, but don't finish off the second layer.
2. Take an etching tool (aka thermometer) and first pull down a stem.
3. Pull in sections of the second layer to create the daisy petals.
4. Pick up some brown crema and make the center of the daisy.

The example in the video isn't the best looking daisy.  It looks better if you get really good definition and contrast with the first layer of the tulip pour so that it looks more like the leaves of the daisy.  Have fun with it!

Five and Ten Logo

Today someone who works at the Five and Ten (another restaurant owned by Chef Hugh Acheson) in Athens came into Empire State South to eat.  The group at their table ordered a couple coffee drinks, so I had to try out some logo latte art etching.  The Five and Ten logo went into the latte, and I just poured a tulip in the espresso macchiato.