Foam and latte are two necessary skills for baristas. Choose the right milk jar.

Professional coffee knowledge exchange more coffee bean information please follow the coffee workshop (Wechat official account cafe_style)

Foam and latte are two necessary skills for baristas, both of which are not as simple as they think, especially in the beginner period, choosing a suitable flower cup may help you.

At present, there are many kinds of flower cup brands on the market, including different materials, capacity, mouth shape, gram weight and color. This text will not recommend one or several brands of flower cups to you, but try to tell you how to choose a suitable one in front of many choices.

Friends who have won many championships in the flower competition have shared: of course, there are many differences in the flower cup, and the most important problem is that you have to try to use it.

Especially for players with high requirements for improvement, if you can feel the slight difference between different flower cups, then it is different for you; if you can't feel the change, don't worry about it yet.

The most basic needs

I. width

First of all, your milk cup should be wide enough to create a whirlpool effect when milking. The purpose of the vortex is to break the big bubbles and turn them into tiny bubbles. These tiny bubbles will not be formed until the milk is fully whipped and heated evenly, resulting in a smooth, velvety, smooth, glossy milky coffee.

2. Size

Most milk cups come in one or two different sizes, 12oz (360ml) and 20oz (600ml). Of course, there are other capacity specifications of milk cups.

We should decide the size of the milk cup according to the needs of the product. If the milk cup is in space, the steam outlet can not be completely submerged in the milk, which will produce air bubbles and spatter the milk; if the milk cup is too full, the milk may overflow the edge of the cup as it rotates.

The ideal amount is to pour the milk in the cup to the protruding position below the mouth of the cup, that is, about 1 prime 3 of the cup.

The capacity of the cup will also affect the tilt angle of the flower movement, which will affect both the punch and the ending, and when you get used to it, you will be able to use it easily.

III. Material

Most people will choose high-quality stainless steel, because it can ensure the consistency of the temperature of the milk heated by steam, and the temperature of the milk can be easily sensed in time. If you think this temperature makes you feel hot or uncomfortable, you can try a milk cup with Teflon coating outside to protect your fingers.

IV. Mouth shape

Experienced baristas and professionals can pull out a highly consistent and perfect pattern of any milk cup, and some cup mouth designs are particularly suitable for specific patterns. Different designs of the cup mouth will also make targeted teaching easier.

Hearts and tulips should be the starting point for baristas to start their latte journey. To put it simply, we start with a vague "one", but we have to pour it out beautifully and have a round shape. If you are just learning to pull flowers, or if you have just found a little feeling about handing out milk, then if you want to improve the shaping of this pattern, you can choose a classic round-mouthed flower cup. This kind of flower cup can make the foam smooth and smooth, and flow out relatively in a round shape.

But it is relatively difficult to pull out extremely delicate patterns with this kind of milk cup, but Slowsetta (a pattern with less embossing and wide veins) may be a good choice for you.

Traditional leaf patterns, or other complex combinations (such as swans or peacocks) are more suitable for narrow-mouthed, relatively pointed nipples. This design allows you to better control the direction of milk flow and facilitate the design of details.

These are just a few ideas that can be used for reference in choosing a milk cup, but the most important thing is not only whether you feel comfortable or not, but also include weight, balance and heat conduction. The most important thing is whether you can control it well when pulling flowers, and whether you will feel more pressure at the end. You need to try a lot and find the one that suits you to master your skills.

The influence of the mouth of the flower jar on the flower drawing

First of all, we simply divide the mouth into the front arc-let me give it a name "lip", that is, the blue arc of point An in the picture, followed by the "neck" of the red line and the two "waists" of point C of BJournal.

Pull the mouth of the vat

So what is the effect of the mouth on the flower jar? Is to give the prepared milk foam a rushing outlet.

Generally speaking, the flower-pulling jar we commonly use is the sharp mouth as shown in figure 1. So how does this pointed mouth work on foam? Under the premise of excluding the density and gestures of milk bubbles, we first assume that milk bubbles are all the same and the techniques are all the same.

The waist mouth of BC at two points actually restricts the flow of milk foam, and the angle between the red sides (neck) and the cup mouth ring also limits the milk foam. For such a mouth, ABC 3 o'clock becomes an equilateral triangle. In the process of passing through the mouth, the milk is gradually forced to a point (actually a curved outlet). Especially in the case of deliberately controlling the flow, the large milk bubble will be blocked by the neck wall and gradually limited. And because the path of pouring out is too short to control the amount of foam poured out, it is difficult to put in and control the pouring point, so you need to practice very skillfully to master and pull out a good pattern at will.

However, as shown in figure 2, it can be seen from figure 4 that the tip of the long-mouth vat has been extended, and the angle of the neck is almost perpendicular to the tangent of the outlet, and the foam is reduced by the restriction of the two waists. dense milk bubbles will not be reduced much; and the extended path can be controlled relatively larger to better control the flow. And the longer mouth is easier to operate on the fixed point and the relatively short mouth, so it is easier to be refined and easier to use in the performance of the pattern.

We may think that if I squeeze the waist with pliers and use the sharp-nosed pliers to modify the angle of the neck to make it close to vertical, won't I be able to create a long mouth effect artificially?

Through experiments, an important problem has been found:

The angle was changed by clamping two neck walls with sharp-nosed pliers, but after the change, it was found that this change affected the arc shape of point An exit. At this time, I tried to pull flowers, because the exit arc became shorter (closer to the point), the impact of the milk poured out became stronger, and it was easy to rush into the bottom of the CREMA instead of mixing, which caused the foam to top up the CREMA instead of floating; and the dense foam was intuitively cut, and the pattern pulled out was very fine and not obvious.

From this we can see the importance of the exit arc. The shape here cannot be easily changed or shortened. From the picture, the A-point exit arc of the long mouth is almost semicircular, which is longer than the A-point arc of the sharp mouth, and the smaller the foam reduction is.

Therefore, if you want to change the angle between the neck wall of the sharp mouth and the tangent of the cup mouth, you must pay attention to the modification of the exit arc.

At present, the common jars in the market can be roughly divided into three types (sharp mouth, round mouth, triangular flat mouth), and the cylinder type of different pattern application is different.

(pointed mouth pull flower jar) is a favorite of many baristas, feeling that the mouth is sharp, the wall is thick, and appears professional, so they buy one after another. As a matter of fact, because the flow rate is easily controlled at the deeper exit and the swing operation is uniform, it is most suitable for such a flower-pulling jar to make fine leaves and flowers. Because of the tip of the mouth, if you make a heart-shaped flower, or the current popular tulip pattern, the success rate will become very low, and it will not be easy to operate.

(round mouth) the round mouth flower jar is the most common kind in the market, which is cheap and widely used. Many cafes like to be equipped with it. Compared with the pointed-mouth flower-pulling vat, the mouth shape is wider and shallower, his flow control will be wider, and the operation of flower-pulling will be a little thicker, so it will be relatively easy to make push-heart (tulip flower-shaped) and heart-shaped coffee flower-drawing. Of course, it is also possible to make leaf-shaped flower-drawing, but it will be much more difficult than the pointed-beaked flower-pulling jar.

This kind of jacquard jar is a small circle, and the exit of the cup is embodied in the form of hooks, which limits his ability to control the flow and sway. I personally feel that although it is difficult to pull flowers in a small cup of coffee, because the quantity is very small, and the cup itself is a small mouth, it is more appropriate to apply to the small cup of coffee under the control of small flow operation. You can try it when you have a chance.

The triangular flat mouth pulls the flower jar, this kind of mouth design is very wide, very shallow, the operation is very inconvenient. Therefore, when the coffee flower is drawn, the milk flow is small and the shake is not strong, so it cannot be out of shape. When the milk flow is large, it is difficult to control. Even if the coffee flower is made, it is often not satisfactory in appearance. As a result, many people in the industry who know about it do not like to use this kind of flower jar. If you have been practicing coffee drawing for more than a year and are still worried that you can't get it out, you will probably choose this kind of flower.

Different mouth shapes and different patterns

Speaking of mouth shape, big mouth, small mouth, sharp mouth, crane mouth …... There are too many mouth shapes of flower vats on the market.

Big mouth is suitable for: embossing, heart pushing, tulips, big leaves. Conventional patterns, can not do fine work, the mouth is too big.

Small mouth is suitable for: embossing, heart pushing, tulips, big leaves, small leaves. A small leaf refers to an element of a combinatorial diagram.

Then talk about a key point: pull flower cylinder mouth valgus, valgus can make your ending very comfortable, important 3 times. It is very comfortable to make a combination or embossing.

In the end, the crane mouth is a magic horse thing, that is, the shape of the mouth used by the Japanese MM to win the world championship, has become extinct, and no one is using it. At that time, the speed of her drawing was really frightening. Today, the bright spot is that the surface is very smooth, but the details are still much worse, compared with many domestic experts in the technical level.

Diversion area: the diversion area is the length from the head of the cylinder to the middle belly, which also plays an important role in flower drawing.

So what will be decided by the short and long meeting of the diversion area?

The diversion area is short, and the speed of foam outflow is slow, which can be stably drawn. For example, the diversion of EV2 is short and comfortable.

The diversion area is long, and the speed of foam outflow is fast, which can be quickly drawn to prevent the possibility of foam stratification, but it is not to say that short ones will be delaminated.

For example, the diversion area of EV1 is very long, and many friends can't handle it. Generally speaking, the flow rate is too fast, it breaks through the surface directly, or there is too little fusion.