A regular at my cafe pointed out my latte art was 'hiding' and I had to stop blaming the milk

I've been making coffee for about 2 years now and I always thought my foam was too thin to pour anything good. This older guy who comes in every morning finally watched me steam milk and said 'you're stopping the steam at 120 degrees because that's what the machine says, but the milk isn't binding yet.' He showed me to push it to 140 and let it spin longer. First pour after that I actually got a visible rosetta instead of a blob. Anyone else had a regular customer give advice that turned out better than any barista class?

2 comments

2 Comments

nancythomas1mo ago

I was actually just reading about this the other day in a coffee blog. They said most home machines stop way too early because the thermostat isn't calibrated right for microfoam. It makes sense because I used to pull my milk off at 120 too and it always looked like soapy water. Pushing it to 140 gives the proteins more time to stretch and bind together. That older guy probably learned that trick back when machines didn't have digital readouts. It's wild how much difference those extra 20 degrees make for the texture.

james_campbell121mo ago

Try frothing with the steam wand angled sideways, works way better than straight down.