I have just recently added a Cremina into my mix of mainly La Pavoni levers and now finally have steam capacity! It is time to try it again.

I am building a La Pavoni Professional, it may have some better steaming abilities but the regular pavoni is challenged if you steam a large amount of milk as its steam capacity is quite small.

Art aside, I agree art capable milk tastes better.

mathof wrote:But I can't get behind latte art, particularly not for the home barrista who has no need to impress customers. The coffee tastes the same with or without the art, after all.

Not clear that it doesn't make any difference. Read this blog post by Matt Perger: Does Latte Art Make Coffee Taste Worse?

Aside from a blinded taste test there is the issue of perceived quality. I recall reading somewhere that customers who are served drinks with latte art perceive them as higher quality and better. There is no reason this couldn't also apply in the home even when consumed by the person who is prepping the drink. The placebo effect is quite powerful.

In any case, I think it's fun to try your hand at latte art. It's a slow learning process making only a few drinks a day but I've improved over the years.

Great thread. I thought it goes without saying that most members here would be experts in latte art when they're making milk-drink. I'm probably wrong there that not that many focus on latte art as I'd have expected.

For my wife's piccolo latte, I definitely have latte arts in them, it's just a matter of how well done it is. My main focus though is definitely the taste, not art. So to hell with the contrast, I always mix the crema with 20ml of microfoam milk before pouring art. Also, I'm constantly improving the milk texture to be as silky as possible, so tulip is probably the most common art I do. I think it is the only latte pattern that looks presentable and not too fancy that it retracts from the taste. Heart, rosetta? Too simple. Swan, scorpion, etching, etc? Too fancy. You get the idea.



For me, I'm happy with just my usual short black. Milk doesn't do it for me either.

I can do the polar bear in a snowstorm or a melted marshmallow fairly well.

tried to post a couple of recent efforts. I compare it to making a nice dinner and "plating" it beautifully. Does the meal taste better? probably not but it sure does look pretty!

Sam's are beautiful!!!

I haven't done more than an occasional heart for my GF's morning cappa, and even that I would not consider to be more than a very crude attempt being poured with the very last bit of milk.
Think I'm not patient enough to practice a lot with the espresso waiting rigjt before my nose...

Think it would help starting to steam the milk for the few milk drinks I make, I'm currently using a frother that heats the milk and though it is working well I do see a big difference between steamed milk and the foam I'm making. The foam is delicate and fades quickly, and the result is very much depending on the milk and freshness of it.

Hope Paul get's around to a faemina steam wand replacement as the current version is quite short....

I'm trying hard but the patterns I manage look more like various root vegetables than hearts or rosaces. My best shots are the "iceberg lettuce" and the "zucchini".

That being said, is there a trick to prevent bubbles from forming and destroying the latte art after it's done? I'm not talking about bubbles in the milk before trying the art (texture looks alright to me, wet paint and all), but instead the fact that dark bubbles begin to form on the pattern minutes after it's done.

Bodka Coffee wrote:I can do the polar bear in a snowstorm or a melted marshmallow fairly well.

I make a good one of these, too.

None of my pours are photo worthy, but we do get some interesting patterns at times. I typically shoot for a fern or curved fern.

What latte "art" does tell me is if I stretched and heated the milk properly. Touch of the heat in the pitcher also tells me about the temp as does the sweetness of the milk, but the pour tells me more about the stretch. When pouring, like this morning, I know that I didn't stretch the milk right so there was no white "art" on top, just a very dark heart in crema. (Typically I do better, but was paying attention to something else.)

A nice latte stretch of the milk brings air into the mix, which I think might help to make the perception of sweeter milk as long as you don't overheat the milk.

For most of the year, I don't do milk drinks at all, as neither my wife nor I consume them anymore except on rare occasions. But each fall I host regular coffee parties for groups of students at my house, and they typically ask for a wide variety of beverages, including both classic milk drinks and weirder items inspired by the menus of large coffee chains. I do my best to satisfy, and usually after a bit of practice I can get my pouring skills back in shape. Still, if this year is like years past, there will be plenty of ghostly potato shapes before I get the hang of things again.

When I'm on my game, I can usually get something like this:



But, this week I will probably get something like this instead: