Nowadays, people are paying more and more attention to single-origin coffee, but in terms of orders at Front Street Coffee, espresso-based coffee still accounts for a large proportion. When choosing espresso beans, Front Street Coffee focuses on the flavor, body, balance of acidity and bitterness, and so on. Front Street Coffee has always believed that coffee is a highly inclusive culture: it can simply showcase the flavor of a single origin, or blend multiple origins to present a comprehensive flavor. In order not to let the coffee flavor be overwhelmed by the milk while still getting along harmoniously with milk, Front Street Coffee considers many factors such as the selection of espresso bean varieties and the coffee-to-milk mixing ratio.

The meaning of latte coffee

Although Caffe' Latte, made with milk plus coffee, is Italian, this beverage was not invented by Italians. The origin of latte coffee can be traced back to the war between the Ottoman Empire and Vienna. In 1683, the Islamic army of Mehmed IV besieged Vienna. The situation was urgent, and the Christians trapped in Vienna decided to seek help from Poland, but first they had to find a messenger who could speak Turkish in order to get past the Turkish army outside the city. A Viennese man named Fanz George Kolschitsky, who had done business in Turkey for many years, volunteered. With fluent Turkish, he deceived the enemy troops and swam across the Danube to ask the Polish king for help. The Christian army arrived in Vienna and drove out the Turks.

The Turkish army retreated in panic but left behind a large amount of supplies, including gold, cattle, horses, camels, and dozens of sacks of coffee beans. At that time, the Viennese did not know what the coffee in the sacks was and thought it was livestock feed. Therefore, when rewards were given out for merit, no one paid attention to the inconspicuous coffee beans. Only Kolschitsky took away all the coffee beans, because he had lived in Turkey and knew how to use coffee beans to make a fortune.

He then opened a coffeehouse called Blue Bottle. At first, he brewed coffee entirely in the unfiltered Turkish way, but the Viennese were not used to Turkish-style coffee, which had coffee grounds and was thick and burnt. Kolschitsky had a sudden inspiration: he used cloth to filter out the coffee grounds, then added milk and honey, creating a new type of refreshing drink that was very popular among the Viennese. This was also the first time milk was combined with coffee, around the late 17th to early 18th century. At that time, technology was not yet advanced enough to invent equipment for making milk foam with high-pressure steam, but Kolschitsky's idea of adding milk to coffee also gave coffee more diverse ways of being enjoyed and became the ancestor of today's Caffe' Latte.

Blue Bottle coffeehouse also became one of Europe's most classic coffeehouses. Many famous painters used it as a subject for their paintings. Vienna still treasures several paintings depicting Kolschitsky entertaining guests, which shows just how popular Blue Bottle coffeehouse was at the time.

Latte Coffee is so called because latte in Italian means fresh milk. In the English-speaking world, it generally refers to coffee brewed with hot fresh milk. The French word lait is synonymous with the Italian word latte, both meaning milk. Latte Coffee is so-called coffee with milk added, usually directly translated as "latte coffee." As for the French Cafe au Lait, it is coffee with milk, commonly called "cafe au lait" or "au lait coffee."

It was not until the 1980s that the term latte coffee came to be used outside Italy. A typical latte coffee consists of one-third espresso and two-thirds fresh milk, generally without added milk foam. Compared with cappuccino, it has more fresh milk flavor. In the latte ratio, the proportion of coffee:milk:milk foam is 1:2:1.

Latte coffee is a classic blend of Italian espresso and milk. Italians also like to have latte as a breakfast beverage. In Italian morning kitchens, coffee and milk are usually heated at the same time on a stove that gets sunlight. For Italians who drink lattes, it is not so much that they like Italian espresso as that they like milk, and only espresso can give ordinary milk an unforgettable flavor.

Italian-style latte coffee

Italian-style latte coffee (Caffe Latte) requires a small cup of Espresso and a cup of milk (150–200 ml). In latte coffee, there is more milk and less coffee, which is very different from Cappuccino. Latte coffee is extremely simple to make: just pour nearly boiling milk into freshly made Italian espresso. In fact, there is no fixed rule for how much milk to add; it can be freely adjusted according to personal taste.

If you add some cold milk that has been frothed into foam on top of the hot milk, it becomes an American-style latte coffee. Starbucks' American-style latte is made in this way: the bottom is Italian espresso, the middle is milk heated to 65–75°C, and the last is a layer of cold milk foam no more than half a centimeter thick.

If you do not add hot milk, but instead directly garnish the Italian espresso with two large spoonfuls of milk foam, it becomes the coffee called Espresso Macchiato by Italians.

Cafe Au Lait

Cafe Au Lait can be seen as a European-style latte coffee, and it is quite different from both American-style latte and latte. Cafe Au Lait is also very simple to make: pour a cup of Italian espresso and a large cup of hot milk into a large cup at the same time, and finally place two spoonfuls of whipped cream foam on the surface of the liquid. The biggest characteristic that distinguishes Cafe Au Lait from American-style latte and Italian-style latte is that it requires milk and espresso to be poured into the cup together. Milk and coffee meet at the first moment, and what collides is a mood of leisure and freedom.

The French are the most enthusiastic supporters of Cafe Au Lait. On a breakfast table in France, you will see round-bellied au lait cups, containing the source of their good mood for the day. Interestingly, compared with all coffee cups, the cup the French use for Cafe Au Lait may be the largest.

Latte coffee is the Italian-style coffee item most familiar to Chinese people. It is a fancy coffee made by adding an equal proportion or even more milk to deep, rich ESPRESSO. With the gentle seasoning of milk, the originally bitter coffee becomes smooth, sweet, and richly mellow. Even people who are not used to drinking coffee find it hard to resist the fragrant and beautiful taste of latte. Like cappuccino, latte is suitable for drinking in the morning because it contains a large amount of milk. Italians also like to use it to warm the stomach and pair it with breakfast. Many people are unclear about the relationship between latte and au lait. In fact, latte is Italian-style milk coffee, in which milk is heated by machine steam, while au lait is French-style coffee, in which milk is heated over fire. Both have the same smooth, warm, and silky mouthfeel.

For latte coffee, there are slight differences from shop to shop in the milk-to-coffee ratio, beans used, extraction parameters, and so on. But in general, latte coffee is a coffee beverage made by adding a large amount of milk to espresso.

Many friends have privately messaged Front Street Coffee asking what a barista needs to learn and whether knowing how to pour latte art is enough to become a barista. In fact, to become a barista, you need not only to be able to make coffee, but also to learn a lot of coffee knowledge. Among these, the most basic skills are, of course, extracting espresso and steaming milk. Many coffee shops choose latte coffee as the test question when interviewing baristas, to test whether the interviewee has the basic barista skills.

How does Front Street Coffee make its latte coffee?

Front Street Coffee's in-store Front Street Sunflower Warm Sun espresso blend coffee beans are used for demonstration. The coffee bean information is as follows:

Front Street Sunflower Warm Sun espresso blend coffee beans

Blend bean sources: Front Street Honduras Sherry Barrel & Front Street Ethiopia Natural Yirgacheffe Red Cherry

Composition ratio: 7:3

Flavor description: vanilla, cream, fermented notes, winey, chocolate

Espresso extraction parameters:

Coffee powder dose: 18 grams

Coffee liquid yield: 36 grams

Extraction time: 28 seconds

Milk parameters:

Milk type: whole milk

Steaming temperature: 50°C

Milk foam thickness: 1 cm

Milk-to-coffee ratio: 1:9

Cup details:

Cup capacity: 200 ml

Material: ceramic

How to make a good espresso extraction?

1. Choose beans

Front Street Coffee generally recommends resting espresso beans for about ten days, but everyone knows that dark-roasted beans degas faster than light-roasted beans. So why do we recommend such a long resting period? This is because when making espresso, unlike pour-over, there is not enough space for the coffee to degas. If the coffee beans are too fresh and degassing is vigorous, channeling is very likely to occur, making the resulting espresso unstable.

2. Adjust the grind size

Once you have suitable coffee beans, then we need to look at the espresso grind size. This is basically something that must be done every day: adjusting the grinder. The grind size for espresso cannot simply be fixed at a certain setting. When does the grind size need to be adjusted?

Situations in which the grinder may need adjustment

1. When temperature, air pressure, or humidity change abruptly: especially in open spaces.

2. When switching between old and new coffee beans: when one bag of coffee beans is used up and newly opened beans are poured in. Because the roast date, batch, and resting period of the newly opened coffee beans may all be different, resulting in very different extraction conditions.

3. Continuous brewing: after 5–6 consecutive cups, the grind size suddenly becomes very fine. This is because after the grinder is used continuously, the heat from the motor conducts to the burrs, and together with the heat generated by friction between the burrs and the coffee beans, the upper and lower burrs expand and contract with heat, making the gap very fine.

The moisture and storage time of coffee beans are constantly changing, and the degree of wear on the grinder blades also changes over time. Therefore, baristas should regularly adjust the grinder to ensure that the ground coffee powder remains perfect.

When coffee beans enter the grinder, the blades inside crush the coffee beans into powder. The smaller the distance between the blades, the finer the coffee beans are ground. The finer the ground particles, the more tightly packed they are, making it harder for water to pass through, thus greatly extending the extraction time. Conversely, if the distance between the blades becomes larger, the ground particles become coarser, water passes through more easily, and the extraction time becomes faster.

Generally, we use the previous extraction parameters to make an espresso, with the time controlled within 25–30 seconds. The single-spout dose is 13–14 grams, and the double-spout dose is about 20 grams.

After excluding factors such as puck perforation, if the extraction time becomes longer, it may be that the surface is over-extracted and the inside is under-extracted, manifesting as sharp acidity, burnt bitterness, and astringency. Then the powder may be too fine, and you can adjust it slightly coarser. But if the coffee flow becomes faster, the stream is thick, the extraction is shallow, and the color is pale, then the powder may be too coarse, and you can adjust it slightly finer.

3. Receiving the grounds

Receiving the grounds is the first step in distributing the grounds. Uneven receiving of the grounds will greatly mislead and affect the subsequent distribution steps. Even if you use very advanced distribution aids, you cannot completely ignore the impact of the grounds-receiving step on espresso extraction.

What are the effects of uneven grounds receiving?

1. Differences in taste: if the grounds are received unevenly, the distribution of the lower part of the coffee bed cannot be remedied during distribution. Uneven density distribution in the coffee bed will lead to uneven puck thickness and different speeds at which hot water passes through different positions during extraction. A slight carelessness can easily lead to perforation and channeling (the inertia of water causes it to choose the places that are easy to pass through while ignoring other paths), causing part of the puck to be under-extracted and part to be over-extracted, making the coffee taste unstable every time.

2. Extraction parameters fluctuate too much, causing you to adjust the grinder for ages, with the flow rate wrong, the time wrong, and the grind size still wrong. You grind away a pile of coffee beans and still cannot achieve stable output.

So how do you practice receiving the grounds?

1. Prepare an electronic scale

Weighing the grounds each time before extraction is an essential operation for making perfect espresso. Even with a quantitative grinder, I suggest you regularly check the weighing accuracy of the grinder. After all, no matter how advanced the machine is, errors and malfunctions are inevitable.

2. Rotate while receiving the grounds

Whether by hand sweeping or direct output, as long as the coffee powder does not fall completely vertically, under the influence of lateral acceleration, the coffee bed will still show a certain degree of bias. For example, when sweeping grounds by hand, the effect of sweeping forcefully and sweeping gently is naturally different: the more force, the more it shifts to the left.

At this time, you need to maintain a steady sweeping motion while steadily rotating the handle, so as to keep the powder evenly distributed to different positions in the portafilter basket——of course, it cannot be absolutely even, but at least it is much better than fixed-position receiving.

4. Distribution

The common distribution methods we see are as follows:

1. Leveling distribution method

The leveling distribution method has three great tools: the hopper lid, a bamboo strip, and fingers. This method is one of the most common and earliest techniques encountered by beginners of all kinds. It is usually combined with movements such as pushing back and forth, and includes "four-way distribution" by leveling front, back, left, and right, and "rotational distribution" by leveling with a 360-degree rotation, among others.

2. Light tapping and light knocking distribution method

Light tapping and light knocking are two movements, but they are usually used continuously. Tap the bottom of the handle quickly with the palm to shake the mound of grounds even, then supplement with straight up-and-down light knocks, which can effectively eliminate large gaps in the coffee bed, make the mound of coffee grounds denser, and at the same time increase the amount of powder that can be held in the basket.

3. Tool-assisted distribution method

When it comes to tool-assisted distribution, naturally everyone has their own methods. Based on the various tools on the market, it is mainly divided into several types: ① stirring or shaking even; ② smoothing the surface; ③ dispersing with a sieve; ④ rotational distribution.

Checking the distribution effect

During extraction, if you find that the flow of coffee liquid quickly becomes unstable, jumping greatly, and the color also quickly becomes very pale, then you can judge: there is a problem inside the puck (cracks have appeared), or uneven tamping has caused the part with less coffee powder to be over-extracted (and this is also very likely caused by uneven distribution leading to uneven tamping), or the distribution is uneven, so that the edge area is not covered by coffee powder, causing water to flow directly through there.

After extraction is complete, remove the handle and observe the shape of the puck. If there is no coffee powder at the edges, or the coffee powder has been lifted by water, or the puck has obvious gaps, then it is because uneven distribution caused the extraction failure.

4. Tamping

Tamping uses a certain amount of pressure to make the loose coffee grounds compact, so that the pressurized hot water can penetrate evenly.

The direction is vertically downward. If you tamp at an angle, the high-temperature, high-pressure hot water coming from the group head will seek the layer with the least resistance to penetrate, causing uneven extraction. At the same time, it is also prone to what we often call channeling.

The amount of force used for tamping and what kind of tamper is used do not matter too much, as long as the powder is tamped compactly. Therefore, keeping the tamping force consistent each time is even more important.

How to steam milk foam?

How should the indispensable milk foam in a latte be steamed to make it silky? Front Street Coffee recommends using whole milk with a fat content of 3.2–3.8%.

In this experiment, Front Street Coffee used Vitasoy fresh milk.

The process of steaming milk:

1. Place the steam wand at the center point of the milk pitcher, tilted 45 degrees to the upper right near the edge of the pitcher, at a depth of about 1 cm. (This depth is fairly common, but for coffee machines with different steam intensities, this is only a suggestion.)

2. Turn on the steam from the steam wand. Move the milk pitcher slowly downward and bring the steam wand's steam holes into contact with the milk surface to create aeration, presenting an up-and-down rolling motion to gradually expand the volume into foam.

3. When it has been aerated and expanded to the desired thickness, pull the steam wand diagonally to the right side of the center point of the milk pitcher, near the edge of the pitcher, so that the milk foam rolls in a vortex.

4. Control the angle and depth of the pitcher to roll in coarser milk foam, and stop when the desired temperature is reached.

The principle of steaming milk

The first stage is: steaming and air intake. Steaming means that when the steam wand's steam holes contact the milk surface, steam enters the milk and turns it into milk foam.

The second stage is: texturing. Texturing means using a vortex to fold air into the foamed milk, causing larger bubbles to break and break down into fine foam, and allowing milk molecules to bond with one another, making the milk foam texture denser.

Points to note:Steaming and air intake

Turn on the steam and begin air intake. Observe the surface of the milk. If the milk is rotating but you do not hear a sizzling sound, it means the air has not been incorporated. At this time, you need to lower the milk pitcher a little to expose the nozzle slightly so as to allow air in. When you hear the sizzling sound of air intake, stop lowering the milk pitcher and keep it in place.

At this time, observe the movement of the milk. Under normal conditions, it should be taking in air while the liquid rotates, forming a vortex.

The action of lowering the milk pitcher to take in air must be subtle and gradual, not too forceful. When the sound indicates that it is in the air-intake state, stabilize it and stop lowering.

The angle of the steam wand when steaming milk foam

Many people are used to placing the steam wand at the 2–3 o'clock or 9–10 o'clock direction of the milk pitcher (with the pitcher spout as the 12 o'clock direction).

In addition to placing the steam wand in the correct position, the angle between the steam wand and the liquid surface is also very important.

If the steam wand is too vertical, most of the steam sprays downward, making it difficult for the milk to form a small vortex. If the steam wand is too flat, most of the steam sprays in a parallel direction, making the small vortex too large and forming turbulence that is difficult to control or causing the milk to overflow.

Practice methods for beginners learning latte art

After we extract a cup of espresso and steam the milk foam, first swirl the espresso in the cup to make the crema adhere to the cup walls, then tilt the cup to about a 40-degree angle.

When pouring the milk, control the stream so it is not too large, letting the milk pierce directly through the coffee liquid to the bottom layer, then begin circling to mix the milk and coffee liquid.

What needs to be noted here is that when pouring the milk, the stream should be thin, and it should be fixed at the center of the coffee liquid.

Then begin circling to mix the milk and coffee liquid until about six-tenths full, then start pouring latte art.

Stacked heart latte art

For stacked heart latte art, pour milk at the 1/3 position of the cup and push out a semicircular arc, then immediately push another one forward. When finally forming a heart shape, raise the milk pitcher higher and pour milk for a short while, so that the initial semicircular arcs surround the whole heart, and finally use a thin stream to finish.

Front Street latte coffee flavor description

The espresso bean currently used by Front Street Coffee is its own blend, Front Street Sunflower Warm Sun espresso blend coffee beans, made with Front Street Honduras Sherry Barrel fermented beans and Front Street Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Red Cherry Project natural processed coffee beans. The espresso made from this uniquely flavored espresso blend paired with milk becomes an obvious liqueur chocolate, with noticeable sweetness, a long finish, and cleanliness. It is very suitable for friends who like winey flavors.

For more specialty coffee beans, please add the private WeChat of Front Street Coffee, WeChat ID: kaixinguoguo0925
 

The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.