How to Create Latte Art - 5 Skills to Master

Have you ever been to a high-end coffee house, and after receiving your cappuccino or latte noticed a beautiful and intricate design in the foam of your beverage? This is called Latte Art, and it is a highly creative and sought-after skill in the coffee and food service industry. If you want to learn how to create latte art for your own enjoyment or to pursue a career as a barista here are five skills you have to master.

The first part of creating designs in coffee drinks is to create your medium, the milk foam. For any espresso and milk drink, such as a latte, cappuccino, or mocha, you first brew the espresso and then steam the milk. While steaming the milk, you can inject air into the top layer of the milk to create foam. This is what you use to create hearts, tulips, or other unique designs on the top layer of your beverage.

While you are texturing the milk, you should brew the espresso. This is a skill that deserves special attention, as different methods of dosing and tamping espresso can result in radically different coffee flavors. It is not enough that a coffee look great, it must also taste great too. Brewing your espresso correctly makes for that great distinction between the brown coffee and the white milk.

There are a number of beautiful designs including a rosette, a heart, or a tulip. The key is to keep practicing until you have these techniques down pat.

· Rosette: Pour starting in the center of the cup with the pitcher resting on the edge. Tilt the cup and shake the milk pitcher side to side with progressively tighter movements.

· Heart: Start with the pitcher resting on the side of the cup, and pouring in the middle with the cup tipped, much like the rosette. As you are tipping you will notice a “halo” start to appear. Finally pour in a line back through your “halos” to create the symmetry associated with the heart.

· Combination: Experiment with these two techniques. Try tilting the cup and shaking the pitcher side to side for a combination of the heart and rosette techniques. Try other techniques as well until you come up with your own signature latte art design.