Can I pull flowers on an iced latte? Why do I have to use hot milk to draw flowers?

Guest: I'll have a latte. Can I pull flowers?

Front street barista: OK, but only hot ones! Guest: well, why can't ice lattes pull flowers?

Front street barista: this is.

(barista OS: do I have to do this? )

In our impression, the hot latte brought by the barista often has a delightful flower pattern, and sometimes it can remain intact at the bottom of the cup even after the last sip. But as the same classic iced coffee, we can only see Italian concentrate on the surface of the iced latte, and the barista will carefully remind you to stir before drinking, with the blending of coffee, milk and ice cubes. It will eventually become a cup of milk-colored drink.

This makes people wonder why baristas only pull flowers on hot lattes but not ice lattes when they are all made of Espresso+ milk.

How is the flower in coffee formed?

Coffee flower pull, to be exact, should be "Latte Art". It is translated into Chinese as latte art, that is, making all kinds of beautiful flowers on coffee through milk. The foam produced by milk in the process of beating (the air is wrapped in protein) can float on the liquid surface because of its lower density. When mixed with espresso, milk and coffee will sink, grease and milk bubbles will float, relying on the sharp contrast of the two colors to form a beautiful pattern. In theory, there would be no coffee flowers without milk.

(PS: although to some extent, the American flower pattern made by foaming technique is established, after all, the foam here is made of clear water and concentrated, the stability is very poor, and the taste is not particularly good, so it is generally believed that it does not belong to the mainstream category of coffee flower, and few cafes produce this "specialty coffee" on a daily basis. )

Back to the point, the reason why baristas can "draw" ever-changing complex graphics on hot lattes mainly includes three key points. Fine foam is a prerequisite for good flower drawing; secondly, warm concentration and milk provide better fluidity and stability for the mutual integration of the two; in addition, experienced baristas will make clear and beautiful patterns appear on the coffee surface by injecting, swinging and marking.

Why didn't the ice latte pull flowers?

An iced latte, as its name implies, is a cold latte, which is mainly made of espresso plus a lot of iced milk. the biggest difference between it and a hot latte is that it does not need to steam away the foam, on the contrary, in order to maintain the frozen taste, ice will be added as an auxiliary role. With the addition of ice, the mellow thickness of coffee will be reduced, but the result will be refreshing comfort and the unique sweetness of iced coffee, so that you won't feel too full even if you drink the whole cup.

Under normal circumstances, if you follow the production process of a hot latte, the iced latte should stir the milk coffee evenly and then hand it to the guests, but in order to "take care" of everyone's photo needs and maintain the appearance of being served, the iced lattes are basically concentrated and poured directly on the ice and milk, leaving the guests to stir well by themselves. When the milk is not bubbling, there is no possibility of pulling flowers in the coffee, because once the two are combined, they are bound to blend with each other.

Some attempts on ice bubbles in the front street

In fact, it is not impossible to pull flowers on an iced latte, for example, some players think that since there is milk foam to pull flowers, you can replace hot milk bubbles with cold milk bubbles, and then follow the steps of hot lattes.

Because the steam bar of the coffee machine has its own high-temperature property, we first need to solve how to produce silky, fluidity low-temperature fine foam without using the steam bar. the easiest way is to use a hand-held milk foamer. It works by breaking down the bubbles in the inhaled milk into microfoams through an electric mesh. When the two actions of heating and foaming are separated, we can smoothly turn cold milk into cold bubbles.

But when Qianjie tried, there was an awkward problem. When using this handheld foamer, it takes longer to maintain the "whirlpool" so that all the mixed gases form bubbles with a smaller structure, and it is easy to inadvertently suck in more bubbles (with a click). Thus destroying the final texture of the foam. The cold foam sent by the foaming machine is not only hard and thick, but also can not be evenly integrated with espresso. When drinking coffee, the stiff foam is motionless on the upper layer, not as smooth as tasting a hot latte. And the rough structure is so unstable that it dissipates more than half in less than two minutes.

As a result, Qianjie made reference to the practice of ice cappuccino and switched to pressing the kettle to make cold milk bubbles. Different from the reengraved ice card, when tapping the valve, Qianjie will try its best to control the net surface not to leave the liquid surface, in order to reduce the gas entry and improve the fluidity of the milk foam. Although the foam made by pressing the kettle is still thick, it is still silky and shiny.

Finally, thanks to the efforts of the barista, the iced latte barely had a small flower that was not very clear, with dense milk foam in the mouth, and a slightly cold taste that softened it with the nutty aroma of coffee fat.

But then again, is such an ice latte without ice still an ice latte?

-END-

Front Street Cafe

No. 10 Baoqian street, Yandun road, Dongshankou, Yuexiu district, Guangzhou, Guangdong province