Barista Training: The Beauty of Latte Art
Latte art is a great way to decorate your drinks and make them even more appealing to your customers. People really like to take pictures of beautifully decorated coffee beverages and post them on Instagram. It contributes to their overall experience at your coffee shop.
Customers usually leave more tips for baristas who skillfully pour latte art. This extra money can serve as an additional motivation for you to master coffee pouring skills. With latte art, you can unleash your creativity and draw anything fun and imaginative. Let's not forget it makes coffee fun!
There are also plenty of local and world latte art championships, and one day you can be the one who wins a Champion title. It starts with practice.
Free pour
The free pour is the most popular latte art technique to create common art designs such as a heart, rosetta, organic flower, and tulip. Read our barista tips and tricks about latte art.
For any latte art design, use hot steamed milk and always swirl your espresso once to break down the crema. But, first, let’s talk about how to create the most basic free-poured design – a heart.
Heart design
Start a little high above the cup and. Pour the milk slowly in the center of the cup to mix the coffee with the milk as the cup fills a little more than a half and moves your pitcher lower, and keeps pouring the milk.
This will allow the foam to lay on top of your cappuccino if you are making one. When the cup is full – lift your pitcher and, with a sudden abrupt motion, then cut through the white spot across the cup to create a heart’s shape.
Hard heart design
To make a ringed or hard heart, you start in the same manner – start pouring your milk a little high above the cup in the middle of your espresso. Then lower your pitcher and start lightly “wiggling” your pitcher from the center towards the rim of the cup. Wiggling creates arches of foam on top of your beverage. When you are ready, lift the pitcher and strike through the pattern. This will create a ringed heart.
A heart-shaped design should be poured so that a right-handed person can drink from the bottom of a heart design. It’s always a good idea to notice if your customer is left-handed and adjust your free pour technique appropriately.
Etching
You will learn many barista tips and tricks and various latte art designs during your online barista training. The etching is another type of latte art that uses chocolate sauce and pointed tools to create etched designs of mochas and hot chocolates. There are two main types of etched designs: a herringbone and a spider web. You can use a toothpick or thermometer probe for each of these designs.
Spider web design
Put a little milk foam on top of your drink for a spider web and make 2-3 circles around it with chocolate sauce. Next, make four strokes with a toothpick from the center to the rim of the cup. Next, make four strokes from the rim of the cup towards the center in between two other lines.
Herringbone design
Use the foam from the pitcher for herringbone and “draw” 3 thin lines across the cup with a coffee spoon. Outline these lines with chocolate sauce. Striking your tool back and forth, make four perpendicular lines across the cup to finish your design.
Latte Art is Fun!
Latte art is a fun way to perfect your coffee skills. While it is not the most important aspect of being a barista, it can be a vital skill to help you stand out from other job candidates. Nevertheless, pouring a variety of latte art is everything about specialty coffee – it adds that extra specialness to your customers' orders. This makes latte art worth the time and effort in investing in.
Barista Training Opportunities
I believe you have spent hours searching online on how to get affordable barista training. However, if you are at the beginning of your journey, you might be searching for information on how to write a barista resume.
The best idea is to consult the Barista Training Academy – your free online barista training resource. We have written extensively about a barista job search and basic barista training. There's no other website where you can find so much information for FREE. Then, when you are ready, consider purchasing The Beginning Barista Guide for a very affordable price.
Brought to you by Barista Training Academy, “The Beginning Barista,” Your Ultimate Prep Guide to Getting Your First Job as a Barista” is an ultimate resource available online and affordable for anybody looking to start a career in the coffee industry. For more information, visit our blog.
