Just doing some shameless, self promotion. This is a video I made for JOUR1112. It's on the Australian Latte Art Champion, Scott Luengen.
I realise it's a terrible piece of journalistic work BUT it explains what the competition entails and also contains some nice latte art. While Scott was not in the right place to do his award winning patterns (I may have bothered him at work!) you can check out his routine from the Australian Latte Art Championships.
After my
previous blog on latte art I went on the search for some fantastic latte art. The
first website I came upon was Rate My Rosetta. While not world champion
material, they do show some awesome rosettas, tulips and hearts.
Though what
I really wanted to see was how the world’s best do it. Chris Loukakis, the 2011
World Latte Art Champion, has some amazing videos on Youtube showing how he
does what he does best.
Looks easy doesn’t
it? Wrong! This stuff is extremely difficult and the World Latte Art
Championships is one of the main reasons latte art has taken off and latte
artists have progressed into doing some crazy patterns.
Let’s just
look at how far latte art has progressed in 4 years. Jack Hanna, the 2007 world
champion, was doing some truly cool patterns at the time; rosettas, fire
breathing pac-man, tulips, hearts and mixes of the basic patterns in regular
cups all quickly and at a world standard level. But comparatively to Chris’s
video before we already see a vast difference.
So what are
judges in the championships now looking for? Each competitor must do a latte, macchiato
and designer pattern which are marked (with multiplier weighting) as follows by
the visual judges:
Two patterns
and presented picture identical (0 if no picture presented) (0-6 pts) x 2
Contrast
between ingredients (0-6 pts)
Harmony,
size and position among patterns within cups (0-6 pts)
Successfully
achieved level of difficulty (0-6pts) x 2
Visual Foam
Quality (0-6pts) x 2
Overall
appealing look (0-6pts) x 4
On top of
this, baristas need to have technical excellence to substantiate their latte
art skills, which constitutes one third of their final mark!
I could
watch these latte artists for hours on end still in awe, but let me show you
one last picture.
This was
done by the 2011 and 2012 Queensland Latte Art Champion – a 13 part tulip. A Queensland
competitor, who consequently went on to be 3rd in Australia in 2011,
is already pulling out patterns which the 2007 world latte artist at the time
could not produce, let alone with the contrast, symmetry and positioning in the
cup. The world of latte art is surely looks bright, especially for the
Australian baristas!
Unquestionably, as individuals, we put an
emphasis on the aesthetics; the better it looks the more we are drawn to it. Of
course we eventually realise that the substance matters, but there’s no denying
that we (at least initially) rate pretty things better.
Aesthetics
are also important when it comes to coffee – the nicer the presentation the
better we think it is. So what constitutes a good looking coffee?
In the
coffee world baristas pride themselves on latte art, the illustrations on top
of the milky coffees. This is done by the mixing of two colloids; the crema of
the espresso and the microfoam of the textured milk. There are two ways to
produce this: free pour and etching.
Let’s first
look at etching. This is where baristas use other utensils to manipulate the
pattern within the foam after the milk has been poured. This includes the use
of sticks/metal equivalents, syrups, chocolate powder and even colouring to
achieve artistic results. Some of the works can be very intricate and even show
great artistic ability as can be seen below.
Using chocolate syrup and utensils
Etch of John Lennon - very artistic!
The other
way is free pouring. This is where the barista pours a pattern straight away
when pouring the textured milk into the shot of coffee. This is done by either keeping
the cup level or on a tilt and the barista pouring the milk in a wiggle or back-and-forth
motion of the jug, allowing the textured milk to separate into the drier foam
and liquid milk, thus forming latte art… at least that’s the simplified method
barring the in-depth scientific analysis of colloids.
There are
three basic patterns that free pour latte artists create; the heart, rosetta
and tulip.
6 part tulip
Heart
Rosetta
So which
method is better? Often people argue that there is great skill in doing free
pour as it takes greater manipulation and understanding of the milk.
Furthermore, you only have one chance to get it right, whereas with etching you
can go back and “edit” (so to speak) the art on the coffee. Personally
speaking, having tried to do free pour, it is very difficult to get a pattern
with good symmetry, contrast and presence in the cup…. Also I just don’t like
the idea that someone has been messing with my coffee and using utensils for
over a minute trying to make it look pretty. Just free pour it and send it out!
Having said
that, having a coffee with latte art doesn’t necessarily mean it will be a good
cup of coffee. Baristas have taken note that aesthetically pleasing coffee can
attract customers and as such have placed an emphasis on this. But that is another
issue – another blog maybe…
So next time you get a latte or a flat white,
take a look at the art. If there’s nothing on your coffee really think about
how good it is. If there is latte art, is it really a good cup of coffee, or is
it just pretty?
