I'm a novice home barista. My favorite coffee shops make milk-based drinks like cappuccino and latte with a very dense, high-quality microfoam, which of course they top off with some nice artwork. It's immediately drinkable down to the bottom. Even at home, my cappuccinos come out much closer to the quality stuff (minus the artwork).

By comparison, the corporate coffee shops and most other public shops that happen to sell coffee serve what I can only describe as scalding-hot milk with a light foam floating on top that quickly gives away. Usually if I pick up coffee from somewhere new and it comes out like this, I don't even bother drinking because even if I can stand the flavor of it, I don't have half an hour to wait for the coffee-milk to cool to a drinkable temperature. I just chunk it and consider it the cost of exploring.

WHY THE DIFFERENCE?? Is it simply the different capabilities of the different machines, or is the equipment at corporate shops and other places fully capable of making the better quality froth described above?

Thanks

What you describe is pretty much one of the major reasons for this site's existence. The quality of milk drinks you enjoy were not even available in my city until a few years ago, certainly not before 2010. My average milk texturing skills are better than all but a handful of shops operating here today.

I'm fairly today's modern commercial espresso machines are capable of producing the milk texturing quality we have come to expect. Maybe the issue is more likely the untrained barista and/or shop owner.

In a word, the difference is 'technique'. Corporate shops, like *$, don't have the time or the inclination to get it right. They just need to keep up with the flow. I've had 'cappuccino' in some shops where the foam on top was a dollop of whipped cream out of a can!

The technique boils down to knowing what kind of foam you want and practising until you get it. The machine is only a variable, not the dominant variable. I can turn out foam of various sorts with anything from a Breville Cafe Roma to my current HX.

Much of the difference is in how you do the steaming. For example, if I want cap foam (for a cappuccino), I "pull" the foam quickly and fully. If I want latte art foam, then I pull more slowly and to a lesser degree. With a cappuccino, you want a bit of separation, as it is espresso, hot milk and a buoyant cap of foam atop. But with latte art foam you don't want it to separate and you want the foam to be denser, with really small bubbles. There's also differences in how hot you let it go while pulling, vs heating and combining (vortex), and how hot you let it go ultimately. For example, I do my latte art foam quite cool, while I let my cap foam get up to about 140 F.

Having said all this, there are as many techniques as there are baristas. There are tutorials on this and other sites where you can find guidance. But nothing beats practice.