Irving Farm, Coffee Company’s managers in New York City explain how the latte art (the design that is created on the surface of the latte) is done. Latte is the shortening of the Italian name Caffe Latte which actually means milk coffee. Caffe Latte is just steamed texture milk which is poured into a single shot of expresso.
First, the milk is heated to 140 degree fahrenheit, as this is the temperature where it tastes the sweetest. Any cooler than this, the flavor of the milk’s natural sugars would not come out and any hotter than this, the milk would burn. Freshly made expresso has its own micro foam called crema and a motion of the coffee’s natural oils as it begins to settle. As the milk is poured in, the crema gets pushed apart and a pattern is left behind on the latte surface, which is usually a tracing of how it was poured. This seems really simple but the secret to it lies in its details. It is much harder to do than to describe. It is also important to note that one should not just keep dumping one into another but plunge into the expresso in such a way that it doesn’t upset the surface but still churns with the coffee underneath.
In judging a latte’s design it is considered ideal that the latte has much contrast in between the white and tan portions as much as possible. In creating latte art designs on a daily basis there are much more important aspects to consider than perfection of form.
