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!

How-To Tuesdays: How to Get Good at Latte Art

Admittedly, I simply didn't have a video or enough detailed pictures to give a good demonstrative skills How-To Tuesday.  So for this week, it's just an informational how-to.

How does a barista get good at latte art?  (And for the record, I'd say that I'm okay at latte art, but not a consistent latte art rock star.)  In short: PRACTICE.  But if you want a step-by-step, here it is...

1.  Become a barista.  Yeah, you could probably develop mad latte art skills with a home espresso machine, but it'd take years at the rate of one cappuccino a morning.  But if you happen to be a barista, don't just make tons of drinks for latte art practice and dump them wastefully (yes, I've been guilty of doing it more than I'd like to admit). 
2.  Practice.  I know I already said this, but for real - pour drink after drink after drink, taking note of what works and what doesn't.  The best latte artists on the planet have poured thousands of milk-based espresso drinks.  How many have I personally poured?  Well, let's say about 4 solid years of barista-ing, with maybe 250 days working a year (cut it to 200 to be safe for estimating) and maybe 25 milk-based drinks a day on average... we're looking at maybe 20,000 chances I've gotten to nail or bomb a pour. 
3.  Watch videos online.  The beauty of watching videos is the chance to replay a clip multiple times and pay attention to various aspects of a pour: the barista's hands, the pitcher, the cup, the speed, the angles, etc.  I remember learning specifically how to do a tulip by watching videos of Greek latte art champion Perry Karavas over and over.  Of course, you can check out my own small collection of latte art videos.
4.  Ask questions.  Other baristas would love to help you out.  There are latte art forums online, and you could definitely submit a question in any of the comment sections on Double Rosetta and I'd be happy to explain how I personally do stuff.
5.  (Pay for training/workshops).  I put this one in parentheses because I haven't actually paid for any latte art training, but I guess that it could possibly be beneficial.  Do a quick Google search and you can find that people charge anywhere from $100-$500 to make you a latte art expert in just a couple hours. 

How-To Tuesdays: Saving Bad Free-Pours With Etching

This cappuccino went out to a customer in the restaurant.  I ended up with too much milk in the pitcher and didn't get rid of any before I started my pour, so the angles weren't quite right for releasing the milk foam out at the right time for latte art.  What I ended up with was a bad-looking heart (or an even worse-looking tulip).  So I pulled out the trusty thermometer and with a few strokes had a whimsical little picture:

This actually happens more than I'd like (i.e. messing up a free-pour latte art design and doing something post-pour to make it look better).  If this happens to you, at the very least you can just stick the drawing tool in there and swirl it around all Van Gogh-like, or you can do what I did and try to create something out of the blobs.  However, never re-steam and re-pour just for the sake of better latte art.  Now that's just wasteful.

How-To Tuesdays: Troubleshooting Clumpy Crema

This is a little nitpicky, but I definitely have started to notice how sometimes the crema of an espresso shot is a little "clumpy" (for lack of a better word).  What I mean is that it's of course super-fresh and has a nice bit of crema when it's pulled, but when I pull the shot straight into a cup and then pour milk into it, the crema doesn't allow for the milk to flow nicely into it.  The result is that free-pour designs sometimes have little corners that get bunched up.  For example:

Okay, so it's not my best rosetta, but as I poured it I noticed that the encircled area had a little foamy clump of crema that didn't really move much as I was drawing the leaves, and the design was ever-so-slightly scrunched on that side.  I could probably do some demo pours and produce a better example, but that'll suffice for now.

Here's what I see as two remedies to clumpy crema:

• If you're pulling shots straight into the mug/cup, give the espresso a quick little swirl after it's pulled to break up the trouble clumps.  
• As you're pouring the milk into the espresso, move the stream around the crema to further soften it and prepare an even canvas to draw into.  See the starts of my pours in my videos and you'll see what I mean.

How-To Tuesdays: Finishing off a rosetta with a heart

Okay, for this How-To Tuesday, we're comparing two different pours of rosettas.  The first is finished off with a rounded heart-shape top and the second isn't.

Example A:

Example B: 

What's the difference?  

Look at Example B.  At around 0:11, you can see a heart shape form at the top of the rosetta, but then I raise the spout of the pitcher away from the surface and bury whatever nice heart would have been there, resulting in a spindly top.  

In Example A, at around 0:12 as the rosetta is finished off, I keep the spout of the pitcher close to the surface, letting foam release onto the drink without having the flow of the milk sink it down beneath the top layer.  

With practice, you can get a heart on the top of every rosetta your pour (if that's actually the look you want to go for).  Cheers!

How-To Tuesdays: Wave Heart - Video

This week's How-To is the "Wave Heart".  I honestly haven't yet perfected this design (just like my attempts at all other latte art designs), but I thought I got the basics down enough to throw up a video and step-by-step:

1. Start just like you would any other design... start filling the coffee cup up nicely and preserve the crema canvas.
2. Start pouring off to one side of the cup (left or right, doesn't matter) and you will see the liquid in the cup start to swirl in one direction.  (It is also an option to pre-rotate your wrist before pouring so that you can rotate the cup while drawing the wave, making the wave wrap around almost the entire cup.)
3. Move the tip of the pitcher closer to the surface and increase the pour speed as you start drawing the beginnings of a rosetta.  This is the "wave", which is really just an unfinished rosetta.  The wave should wrap around the cup, being affected by how early or late you start drawing and also how fast your pour speed and swirling action is.
4. As you finish up the wave - without pinching off the pour - move back toward the middle and draw a heart. 

In the video, I could definitely have continued drawing the wave for longer, making it wrap around the cup more (I actually rushed it and ended up with quite a bit of space left to fill the cup to the brim).  I also could have moved more toward the center of the cup while drawing the heart - it looks a little too high in the cup to me.  There was also a little bit of cloud action at the start of the wave, so the definition isn't as sharp as it could be.

Enjoy wave heart making!

How-To Tuesdays: The Ring - Video

Occasionally I luck out and end up with a neat little ring that frames a latte art design pretty nicely.  I haven't really worked on controlling it to do it every time, but I've seen it in other people's pours enough that I know I want to do it consistently well.

After a little trial and error, it looks like these are the key things to do:

• Start filling the cup slowly without disturbing the crema, leaving a nice dark background to pour into.
• When you start getting close and releasing foam, make it a point to have the first layer of white be well-defined and not a fuzzy cloud.  For me, this means deliberate rocking/shaking at the right time to release the foam, and not doing it too early.  Pinch off the pour like you're doing a tulip.
• For the next part, it probably doesn't really matter if you want to end up with a tulip or rosetta or heart, but the big key is to push that second layer into the first, through a combination of pouring slightly faster and moving the pour forward while leveling out the cup.  That will insure that the second layer rests more or less inside of the first, with the first thinning out and becoming an outer ring.
• Finish off the design as a tulip or whatever you choose.

For these videos, I chose to stick with tulips, but I'll attempt this technique with hearts and rosettas later.

 

 

How-To Tuesdays: The Bear - Video

Here's a video of me pouring and etching The Bear design.  I already gave a step-by-step description of how to do the design in a previous post.

 

Update (2/8/2011):  I've started to put dark dots in the eyes of the bears I etch.  So much more personality now!  Here's the new video, with a slightly better angle to see the etching as well...

How-To Tuesdays: Tulip - Video

I've decided to kick off a weekly feature: "How-To Tuesdays".  I'll give a more in-depth look at a specific latte art design each week, hopefully including a video with the post.  Feel free to comment and ask questions if you need clarification.

This week it's a tulip pour.  This particular tulip isn't that bad, though I like it when the outer ring is more defined than the one here.

My personal opinion on what makes a good tulip:

1. A good handle on how to "release" the foam into the cup right when you want to.
2. Finishing each layer off with a slight push, but not fully pulling through like you're finishing off a heart or rosetta.
3. Dropping each new layer into undisturbed crema for maximum contrast.
4. "Pushing" each layer into the previous one while leveling the cup at the same time, to make the layers rest nicely within each other.
5. A nice heart to finish it off.
6. All the other basics of good milk, contrast, symmetry, etc.