Make the milk transparent and clarify what coffee is.

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Over the past two years, in the coffee special circle, clarify coffee, transparent latte, milk wash special …... A drink that seems to be milk-free appears frequently on the menu, clarifying the use of milk has become a new concern for many people.

What is clarified milk?

The liquid is opaque because the particulate suspended matter reflects light, making the solution look turbid, and "clarification" is to purify these fine particles to make them transparent. Common clarification techniques include milk washing, centrifuge, Pectinase and Agar, among which milk washing is the most well-known.

In fact, clarification techniques are more common in the field of wine blending, known as "milk wash", and related recipes have been documented as early as the 18th century. Usually the bartender will add milk and lemon juice to the raw material as a clarifier to make the wine not only have a delicate and smooth taste and milk flavor, but also have a transparent "high appearance".

The clarified milk we are talking about today is also the process of using sour fruit juices to make acidic substances react with casein in milk to produce flocculent precipitates, which are finally filtered to get a clear liquid. The filtered milk removes most of the protein, and the other ingredients are similar to those of normal milk.

Clarify how milk entered the coffee industry?

As mentioned earlier, the earliest story of clarifying milk comes from the field of blending. Clarified Milk Punch, a cocktail with a history of three hundred years, has recorded this colorless transparent milk since 1862. Later, as independent cafes around the country began to make special changes, baristas began to learn from some of the techniques of blending drinks and apply them to the research and development of creative drinks.

In the Chinese division of the 2021 World Coffee and Spirits Competition, champion Qiu Jianming used the technology of clarifying milk in his creative blending. This clarification technique began to emerge in the coffee industry, recognized by people in the industry, and tried to match more types of coffee, such as Italian concentrate and cold extract.

How to clarify milk again?

The core ingredients for making clarified milk are protein and acidic substances, that is, milk and acidic fruit. In addition to lemon juice, you can also choose orange juice or other fruit juices.

Picture from: creative coffee expert Dan Qing

According to the experience shared by netizens, the steps of clarifying milk are not complicated. First mix the milk and fruit juice and stir thoroughly, then let it settle for about half an hour, then filter it with filter paper (it will take a long time) to get a cup of transparent milk with fruity flavor. It can be tasted directly, it can also be paired with a mellow black coffee, and it can also be used as an element for making special flavors.

Will clarifying coffee become a new favorite in the special market?

With the wave of opening coffee shops sweeping across the country, more innovative special coffee has been moved to the menu, and clarified coffee with a transparent shape as a selling point has naturally become one of the products that attract consumers. Search for "transparent Milk" on Little Red Book, and there are more than 40,000 notes on pictures and texts. In addition to making tutorials to share, most of them are used with special coffee.

With the help of sour fruit juice, clarified milk tastes more similar to fruit drinks, so it is more suitable to be used as a raw material for creative drinks such as fruit juices than traditional coffee. Some people pour coffee liquid directly into the "clarification American style", while others mix it with spirits to produce new products of curry wine. The coffee version of the clarification series has indeed become popular in the special circle and become the "star product" of these coffee shops.

Photo by: Lin Xiaoshu / All Day Club Liangchen Playhouse in line

However, the process of making clarified coffee is too troublesome and difficult to preserve, and the time cost and labor cost will limit the large-scale popularity of the clarified series of products. If you only rely on the manual production of baristas in the store, it is difficult to supply in large quantities in a short period of time. In addition, the price has always been set at dozens of special coffee, if only the base is replaced with transparent milk, the taste does not have any advantage with coffee, then the title of "clarified coffee" can only be a gimmick.

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