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Coffee making is an art form, and tiny changes in ingredients, preparation techniques and proportions can make a huge difference to the quality and taste of your finished drink.

In this first in a series of posts, we take a look at what goes into the perfect café latte – great if you’re running a coffee business, and want to make the most delicious drinks to help you stand out from the competition.

The coffee

It doesn’t matter how good your barista skills are – a great latte requires a great espresso, and a great espresso requires high quality coffee beans.

When choosing your coffee, it’s important to remember that the fat in the milk of a latte will impair your taste buds slightly, so you need to go for a fairly robust coffee capable of standing up to the milk, and cutting through it.

You could write a book (and many have!) on pulling the perfect espresso, so we won’t go into the finer details, but you’re going to want a double shot (brewed from between 14-18g of coffee grounds) to create the perfect latte.

As soon as you’ve pulled your espresso, you need to move quickly – get it straight into the cup, and immediately start adding your steamed milk. This will preserve the golden ‘crema’ or foam of the espresso, enhancing the taste and appearance of your finished latte.

The milk

In Italian, the word ‘latte’ means milk – and choosing the right milk and preparing it in the right way is integral to the finished latte.

First of all, unless you’re lactose intolerant or on a dairy free diet, we recommend going for cows milk – it’s traditional, froths up better and most importantly, makes your latte taste nicer!

When choosing milk, you’re going to want to go for semi-skimmed or full fat, as skimmed milk simply doesn’t produce the same results. In our opinion, organic milk from grass fed cows tastes best. In addition, the higher fat content milk you choose, the easier it is to froth.

Steaming and aerating your milk in the right way is vital. Start with refrigerator cold milk, and a cold steaming jug/pitcher, which will reduce the risk of scalding the milk and spoiling the flavour during preparation. Size wise, you’ll need a jug that’s roughly twice the volume of the milk you’re steaming.

We’ll go into further detail about how milk changes when it’s steamed, and how to create the perfect steamed milk in a future post, but you’re going to want to heat it to between 50 – 60 degrees Celsius, and no more.

Start by creating the foam – ‘stretching’ the milk by holding the nozzle of the steam wand just below the surface of the milk. As soon as you have enough foam, push the wand slightly deeper into the milk, tilting the jug, and creating a whirlpool – ‘spinning’ the milk until it reaches the required temperature.

A quick thump on the counter to get rid of any big bubbles, followed by a small swirl, and you should have wonderfully silky, thick and smooth milk that’s ready to pour slowly into your coffee.

Proportions

When preparing a latte, the temptation is always to overdo the milk – but adding too much will dilute the taste of the coffee, and ruin the finished drink. Remember, the coffee is still the star, and it needs to stand out.

Typically, a latte uses a 1-3 espresso to milk ratio, with a 2cm layer of thick milk foam. It depends on the strength and profile of your chosen coffee, but if anything, you might want to cut down on the milk slightly, whilst retaining a good layer of foam.

First impressions

Now you’ve made a high quality coffee, you can add some style to back up the substance. Latte art is a great way of enhancing the appeal of your lattes.

It doesn’t have to be elaborate – hearts, flowers and fern patterns are really easy to learn, giving your finished cup real wow factor, and make the right first impression with your customers.

How Big Coffee can help

At Big Coffee, we’re here to help passionate people to establish and run their own successful coffee businesses.

From providing you with a superb, handcrafted coffee cart packed with high quality equipment, to supporting you with your business plan and providing you with the right barista skills and advice, we’ll help you turn your coffee dreams into a reality.

For further information, call our friendly team of coffee experts today on 01482655020.