Latte Art Liquid – your ultimate practice companion
Why do we need Latte Art Liquid? And Latte Art – love it or hate it?
This is a guest article by Esther-Hope Gibbs of Hope Espresso
Some people think latte art isn’t necessary for a great cup of coffee & that as baristas we shouldn’t spend too much time worrying about the pattern, but to focus on extraction.
[Sassy_Social_Share]I admit it. I have trained some baristas who have come to the course and can pour a unicorn riding a unicycle. But they do not understand why you would need to adjust a grinder for flavour in coffee.
But in 2021 with Instagram and other social media platforms being such a key part of marketing, especially having your own customers advertise your business and coffee to their followers (for free!) when they take a picture of your cup – you can see why latte art really IS important.
Being good at latte art isn’t something that happens overnight. I am yet to find someone who has never steamed milk before that can immediately pour a swan… It takes practice, and along with that practice, it takes A LOT of milk.
Latte Art Liquid saves a lot of Milk and Coffee
I have spoken to latte art champions, like Dhan Tamang (6 x UK Latte Art Champion) who says he would spend from 5pm-11pm after his shifts practicing every day to become the greatest and pour such amazing and intricate patterns. In doing so, he would fill 50L bins with wasted milk and coffee.
Not only is that a huge expense; the cost of milk and coffee to practice is NOT cheap – but is it sustainable? To waste so much coffee (that has been carefully grown, picked, processed, shipped, imported, roasted, packaged; and milk (the cow has been reared, milked, pasteurised, heat protected, packaged, transported) – is it really ethical or sustainable?
Is there a sustainable zero-waste solution?
Could the answer be Latte Art Liquid?
Recently I was introduced to SuperPresso & Latte Art Liquid.
Created in Korea, the set consists of 2 pumps; one to give an espresso base & the other your “milk” for the latte art.
All you need is approximately 1g (about 4 pumps) of the Latte Art Liquid per 250ml of water & 1g (2 pumps) of the SuperPresso per 20ml of espresso.
There is enough in the bottles to give you 30 litres of milk and at least 4kg of coffee – significantly reducing the cost, packaging and wastage – at approx. £15 RRP per bottle (for me, I’m excited because it means I don’t have to carry heavy bags of milk back from the car any more)…. The product is 100% vegan and although the cups look good enough to drink, the bottles clearly state they are not for consumption.
Latte Art Liquid and Superpresso: great for practicing
It is great for practice and gives amazing contrast in the cup – perfect for getting the muscle memory in for simple patterns like a heart, tulip, rosetta and swans, but also for the more complex designs too. It’s great to build up new patterns and experiment without the fading you get with normal milk or acidic coffee. Unfortunately it is not 100% transferrable in this way as if you are seriously practicing a monkey flying a plane, you will need to do a few cups of real milk and coffee to adapt it to the fading that will occur due to the chemistry of the milk & coffee – but in the meantime you haven’t had to waste litres to come up with the pattern, or build up that muscle memory in the first place.
This is the perfect purchase for someone who is looking to experiment on shift without wasting company supplies (although time to lean, time to clean, should maybe be replaced with time to pause, time to pour?), or for practicing your latte art for competitions, and maybe in future we would find these at latte art throwdowns & competitions to save on wastage too.
Latte Art Liquid & Superpresso video
This is a guest article by Esther-Hope Gibbs of Hope Espresso
About Esther:
“Passionate about doing business differently, I am a travelling freelance coffee consultant and trainer. I am a certified AST and Q Grader covering all aspects of coffee business through an anthropological and sustainability lens”
You can see more of her work or get hold of her via her website:
About CoffeeCode
CoffeeCode is the UK’s fastest growing and most exciting coffee blog, and has a focus on great coffee, inspirational design and sustainability.
We always do our best to attribute photos, videos and quotes and information to their original sources. Please contact us if an attribution or content is missing or incorrect.
