Coffee review

Focus on the discussion: is the coffee flower really that important? How to make coffee flowers?

Published: 2024-11-02 Author: World Gafei
Last Updated: 2024/11/02, Professional baristas exchange please follow the coffee workshop (Wechat official account cafe_style) wow, how amazing ~ a cup of coffee with exquisite flowers, it is easy to win consumers similar amazement. As a result, the hard practice of flower drawing has become the basic skill of almost every barista. Have you ever thought about what a flower means to a cup of coffee? Face score? Taste? Or something else? Today

For professional baristas, please follow the coffee workshop (Wechat official account cafe_style)

"Wow, that's amazing."

A cup of coffee with exquisite flowers is easy to win similar amazement from consumers.

As a result, the hard practice of flower drawing has become the basic skill of almost every barista.

Have you ever thought about what a flower means to a cup of coffee? Face score? Taste? Or something else? Today we're going to talk about this topic--

"

Let's take a look at the statistics first. do you think it is necessary to have flowers on coffee?

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Taste comparison test:

Coffee with flowers may not taste better.

To put it simply, a latte or cappuccino is actually a mixture of espresso and steam-heated milk, but the way the two ingredients are mixed can have an impact on the customer's taste and senses.

Matt Perger, a famous barista in the boutique coffee industry, did such an experiment in May 2015--

First of all, he prepared two identical cappuccinos with the same proportion of coffee and milk, and both had a flower pattern.

Then, after stirring one of the cups (of course, the pattern was destroyed), he put on an eye patch for himself and took a blind test.

How did it turn out?

He found that if you want a cup of milk coffee that is well balanced in flavor, pull flowers may not be what you want.

A standard beautiful jacquard design must have a dark brown coffee grease on the edge of the cup to highlight the white foam pattern. This circle of fat is visually beautiful, but it actually tastes very strong and generally bitter, so the first sip of milk coffee often feels a little sharp.

▲ is good for flower drawing, but it can affect the taste of coffee.

On the contrary, a cup of milk coffee after mixing is full-bodied and will not be too exciting. It is more superior purely in terms of taste.

As a result, coffee guru Scott Rao once proposed a way to make baristas show their skills without sacrificing the taste of coffee--

First of all, pour the thicker milk foam into the espresso, shake it well, reduce the bitterness of the fat, and then finish the flower pull as usual. In this way, you can avoid having too much bitterness in the first mouthful, and there will be a better visual effect.

two

Multi-sensory experience: if it looks good, it will taste better.

When you drink coffee, you actually experience the taste, smell and taste at the same time. It is generally believed that flavor is formed by these three aspects, but in fact, flavor may be affected by more other factors.

Ida Steen, author of the sensory course of the European boutique coffee association, mentioned in an interview that many people think that flavor is a multiple sensory experience that includes sight and hearing.

Similarly, biochemist Olivia Auell concluded after a boutique coffee seminar that if slow and sad music was played while drinking coffee, testers were more sensitive to bitter taste, while light music highlighted sweetness.

The sensory beauty of ▲ will also have a great influence on the taste.

In addition, an experiment conducted by the University of Oxford in 2014 also proved that testers' predictions of the taste of Latin America will change depending on whether the plate arrangement of the salad looks like a famous painting.

Generally speaking, the so-called complete color and smell means that there are many factors that can affect the flavor of a cup of coffee, the most important of which is the taste of the coffee itself, but it also includes the environment around you, such as other people's perfume or the aroma of some nearby foods. the music that was playing at that time, and even the design of the flowers in the cup.

three

Improving perceived value: the meaning behind pulling flowers

Places that provide delicious food, such as Michelin restaurants, pay great attention to the placement of food and the visual design of products.

A delicate dish, in addition to being pleasing to the eye and making diners feel that the food is present, also brings out an important message: chefs and people who prepare ingredients attach great importance to their products and try their best to take care of every detail and provide the best dishes for guests to enjoy.

▲, a cup of exquisite flower drawing can make customers feel "attentively".

The beautiful flower pattern represents countless hours of practice, as well as incomparable thought and effort, in order to present the best coffee experience, both tastefully and visually, to the guests. The attractive appearance also enhances the perceived value of the cup of coffee in the hearts of guests.

Of course, a beautiful flower is not enough, it must be combined with the best efforts of raw bean processing, coffee roasting, and brewing to be called the perfect boutique coffee.

four

Pull flower has its own appearance, which is convenient for marketing.

Social media like Instagram has become an indispensable tool for merchants in brand marketing and a part of the online life of many coffee lovers.

For businesses, every like and every share on social media can become an important tool to effectively attract new customers and achieve publicity.

▲ everyone likes to post pictures and share, pulling flowers is a good way to promote.

So, if you, as a store owner, completely ignore the importance of pulling flowers in order to get people to taste the flavor and taste of your coffee wholeheartedly, and even stipulate that products in the store are not allowed to have them, the result may be that only your family and friends will follow your social media.

But now there is also a not-so-good situation: it takes the barista 10 minutes to depict the flower pattern of 10 bears, cats and birds before sending the milk coffee to the customer, and the customer takes a 360 °loop to take a photo, and finally, when drinking, not only the temperature of the drink is too low, but the dense milk foam originally mixed in the coffee has floated to the surface, roughening the taste that should be smooth.

five

There should be a balance between experience and taste.

The frustrating situation of drawing flowers is that baristas may only focus on the visual effects of drawing flowers and ignore the texture of milk bubbles.

For example, when you order hot cabbage, the barista hands over a cup of milk coffee with a swan's love and the luck of transporting grass and flowers, but when you drink your first sip with anticipation, you find that the foam is only 0.1 mm thick and tastes completely wrong. it's not even as good as a cup of French-pressed coffee with warm milk.

No matter how good the experience of ▲ is, it can't save the bad impression caused by bad taste.

Cappuccino should have rich micro-foam, perfect integration with hot milk and espresso, when you drink, you will have a unique sensory experience, can enjoy both rich and delicate sweetness and marshmallow lingering taste.

It would be a pity to sacrifice the taste that affects the quality of the whole cup of milk coffee for the sake of a pattern that is basically destroyed after a sip.

Therefore, there should be a good balance between vision and taste.

six

The conflict between flower-pulling art and commercial management

One question is, if the coffee flower can be omitted, then why is there a flower draw contest?

For the contestants and the whole competition, the technology and craftsmanship they pursue and show is to pull flowers, and the role of coffee is just a platform or medium for them to perform.

So it's pointless for you to talk to them about whether the coffee tastes good, whether it's over-extracted, how it tastes, and so on. Even for the judges, they only grade visual items, such as creativity, execution, consistency, comparison, and so on.

▲ obviously, there is a conflict between the art of drawing flowers and commercial operation.

These patterns, which are sometimes painted with food-grade paint, are undoubtedly very ornamental, but they take a long time to make. As a guest, would you be willing to wait for half an hour for a beautiful but cold milk coffee?

This idea of drawing flowers for art is actually contrary to the idea of commercial management of coffee. Of course, this is OK on the playing field, or when doing activities and training, but for a busy coffee shop, it is a bit impractical.

So can the effect of flower pulling add value to a cup of coffee, or is it superfluous?

No matter what your point of view, there is one important point that I must bear in mind: poor coffee will not be made delicious by good design, but poor coffee will become irrelevant because of delicious coffee.

So, what do you think of whether you want to pull flowers or not? Would you like to leave a message for discussion?

How to make coffee flowers?

People all over the world learn to pull flowers from coffee. Its principle is to pour milk bubbles from steam into the Espresso of espresso to form different patterns. There are mainly two kinds of flower-pulling techniques:

1. Direct inversion method (Free Pour)

Control the milk pot, through different shaking range, speed and the height of the milk pot, pour the milk foam into the coffee, pull out different patterns with free hands, and pay attention to skilled skills.

two。 Carved (Etching)

Slowly pour the milk foam into the coffee, pull out the basic composition, use flower needles or toothpicks to carve out a variety of patterns, the technical difficulty is low, but it is creative.

Draw on the coffee with a flower needle.

Before everyone learns to pull flowers perfectly, you must first prepare the necessary materials and appliances, and you must prepare:

1. Coffee beans, bean grinders, coffee machines:

Making coffee flowers, milk foam and Espresso are of course the protagonists, so we must use bean grinders and coffee machines to change coffee beans into Espresso.

Prepare a good Espresso.

two。 Full fat fresh milk

Milk foam is made of milk, because the fat and protein content and temperature of milk will affect the formation of milk foam, pull flowers had better use full-fat fresh milk, because of its high fat and protein content, can make more and more smooth milk foam. In addition, milk must be frozen, because frozen milk can prolong the mixing time when bubbling, milk and foam mix properly, pull flowers will be beautiful.

3. The steam bar / foam pot / milk stick of the Italian coffee maker

All three are foam tools, hand foam pot and electric milk stick are more difficult to master, beginners should choose a single stomatal steam stick, because of fewer pores, the slower the steam comes out, it is easier to control. The milk bubble pot can be made of its own size according to the production weight, and steel pots of 350 cc or 600 cc are generally available.

Use frozen whole milk to foam.

4. Flower teapot

Milk foam is used for flower drawing. You can choose the size according to the steam pressure of each coffee machine and the quantity of each production. Generally, you can use a pot of 300 ml, 350 ml or 600 ml. Pull flower pots have different shapes, it is recommended to buy the shape of the kettle body, the bottom of the kettle is wide and narrowed upward, and do not choose the middle wide, upper and lower narrow shape, because it is disadvantageous to foam. As for the shape of the spout, you can choose a round and wide spout, the outer bend is better, it is easier to control the stability of the milk foam. The kettle mouth groove can choose the long groove type that can collect milk bubbles, which will be easier to control.

A good flower-pulling pot is convenient for beginners to control.

5. Coffee cup

Beginners suggest to choose a coffee cup with a short round bottom and a large caliber, which will be easier to master, take a shorter time to pull, and the pattern will be easier to pull out.

When everything is ready, the actual combat is about to begin!

Eight practical steps, try it slowly, don't worry:

1. At this time, I have a cup of Espresso and a pot of milk foam in my hand. Set 1Compact 3 at the mouth of the cup as the drop point, tilt the coffee cup 10-15 degrees, lift the milk pot to about 10 cm, and begin to pour a small amount into the foam to pierce the grease.

two。 Steady and pour into the milk foam with a small flow until the coffee cup is 5 minutes full.

Keep the foam flow steady.

3. When the milk bubble "white spot" appears in the coffee noodles, lower the milk pot to close to the mouth of the coffee cup, increase the foam injection flow, cooperate with the arms and wrists, and shake the milk pot left and right with the Z word, the shaking distance is about 1 cm.

4. The purpose of the shaking milk pot is to increase the layering of the heart shape. As the milk pot continues to shake, the convenient area of the milk will continue to increase and form a circle, so pay attention to maintaining the flow of milk bubbles.

Shake the milk pot slightly with the Z word left and right.

5. When there are more milk bubbles in the cup, slowly put the cup flat when the coffee cup is full. When the coffee cup is 8 minutes full, completely flatten the coffee cup, ready to increase the flower jar and reduce the amount of milk foam.

6. When the 9 minutes are full, slowly lift the flower pot and fine the injection flow, at this time the injection point is the central point of the heart shape.

The take-up position determines the right and left symmetry of the heart.

7. The foam is collected from the centerline to the end of the cup with a small flow.

8. At the end of the call, a cup of heart-shaped pull coffee is finished!

A beautiful heart shape, just like this.

What is the perfect flower pull?

For perfect flower drawing, in addition to a clear pattern, the coffee should also be about 0.5 cm higher than the mouth of the cup, so that it is full without overflowing, while the thickness of the foam is controlled between 1-1.5 cm, with both taste and appearance.

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