On latte art – Creative constraints

Naturally, if you work as a full time barista, sooner or later you will begin to get tired of simply pulling a shot, frothing milk and pouring it into the cup. It all starts with a simple fluke – an unsteady hand accidentally creating a squiggly white frothy abstract pattern, followed by intrigue and curiosity as you try again to recreate what you have just done but to no avail, ending with going back to not giving a damn. A fluke is a fluke and it feels great to see a pattern pop up once in a while, you get a great sense of satisfaction every time you succeed and it makes day to day barista work that much more enjoyable.

However over time, as your skills improve and your hands become rock steady, you find your flukes happening more often. This will no doubt boost the ego and encourage the barista to pursue various art styles. All of a sudden you are scrounging through youtube and instagram videos trying to find out how to pour that rosetta, tulip or whatever catches your eye. You become lost in the idea that you could also create these patterns, and as soon as you step into work the next day you buckle down and start getting creative.

Latte art used to be like that for me; I focused very hard on trying to get the pattern to form at the end of my pours. However, there was one critical mistake I made throughout my latte art obssession – I lost my ability to make good tasting coffee.

Only in the last year or so did I truly understand how and when latte art should be applied to best effect. It’s not always about the prettiest looking pattern on top of your drink, the taste is paramount and if art needs to be sacrificed in order to achieve it, then one must put aside their creative pride and deal with it.

Here’s an example of a very early latte art I did:

a Rosetta pour in my latte art fanatic days

Wow, that’s a sweet pour! I was pretty ecstatic when poured that. But looking back at this picture, It’s no good and if I were to pour something like that today, I would remake it immediately.

The main focus is on the taste of the coffee, which is defined by the brown coloured crema on top of your cup. If that rich brown colour is dulled by the milk, a lot of that coffee taste will be gone.

Here’s a pour I did recently:

flat white with a tulip design

Please excuse the orientation of the photo, it is unedited straight from my phone. The point I’m trying to show is that, while there is indeed latte art in the cup, It is surrounded by nice, rich brown crema. Your first sip on this flat white will have the full flavour of the coffee, and minimal (depending on how big you sip) milk taste.

When you go to a coffee shop, order a flat white and see how the barista makes it. If the surface has a rich brown colour, especially around the outer edge of the cup, and especially where you will be sipping from the cup, it means he knows what he’s doing.

It took me a while before I realised this, and when I did I started to feel really bad about serving all those latte art obsession driven cups to my customers.

Latte art should only be a complement to a drink, it should not interfere with the flavour of the coffee crema. As a barista, the goal is to provide customers with the best tasting cup of coffee, not the best looking cup of coffee.

With that in mind, as a customer, you can now confidently walk into any cafe and judge a good cup of coffee. After all you need to get your money’s worth.

As a barista, you need to understand when its appropriate to draw and when you should just focus on keeping things simple. When things get busy, unless you are a very skilled barista, it will be hard to deliver consistent latte art for every single cup. So here are a few simple and general rules I like to stick to when such things happen:

• For cappuccinos, I tend to avoid drawing latte art, since caps are meant to be frothy and it gets harder to draw art the frothier the milk is. If I really wanted to draw something, a heart pattern would suffice.
• For lattes, keep it simple as well due to the amount of froth. A heart or a simple rosetta is ok
• For flat whites, you have more lee way to be creative; anything goes really. But always remember to retain the brown crema around the outer rim of the cup at all times.
• Any other non standard drinks that contain coffee is the same. For really small drinks like piccolo lattes or macchiatos, it really depends on your skill level. If you are not 100% confident your art will appear, don’t risk it.

So there you go, an insight into what I think about latte art. By all means don’t stop being creative, just remember that the taste should be top priority.

 

 

A Retrospective

It’s not often I look back on my life and try to remember what I have done, as I have always been somebody who looks ahead and sorts out for what tomorrow brings (planning may or may not be in included, I like to live life dynamically).

However, since this is a blog dedicated to my experiences as a barista, I’ve decided to begin by outlining the course of events that led me to where I am now and how it has shaped me to become the person I am today.

It all began back in 2010, I just graduated high school and during the long summer break I needed a job to fund my social life. I had worked previously in a cafe within a shopping mall and also as a casual in a clothing retail store, both of which were short lived. Nevertheless,  my best bet to land another job would be in those two areas and if I had to choose one, being a waiter at a cafe seemed more my style. 

Luckily there was a couple of local advert listings for part time staff in a busy cafes, the locations were ideal so I jumped at the chance, handed in my resumes to each one and started the waiting game. 4 months on I received a call from one, so without any preparation (that’s how I roll), I rocked up for the interview.

It wasn’t my first interview, but you can’t help feeling nervous. The lady (the business was run by her and her husband) was nice to me and told me about the business; high volume coffee and food, busy all the time, needs a passionate staff member who is secure and will stay for a period of longer than 2 years. At the time I felt that was a bit unrealistic, as my interest and university career path leaned more towards digital art/graphic design. Let’s be honest, I was young and I just needed money, anything goes. I remember making a lot of promises, and for that I recieved my trainee position at that cafe.

The first few weeks were hell – they weren’t lying when they said busy. I struggled with many aspects of the job and those were some of the most embarrassing moments of my career in hospitality. However, once I had learnt the ropes and things became easier, some part of me was unsatisfied with how much I am paid. I spoke to the husband of the business and he said if I start learning how to make coffee and become good at it, he will give me a raise. Bam. Done. Anything for a raise am I right? And plus I get to learn something new. 

Little did I know this was the turning point of my life.

For the next 6 months I learnt how to make coffee under the boss’ strict supervision, and was eventually taking to the main coffee machine to help the main barista with steaming milk. It was frustrating at the time as I was not used to the workflow behind the machine and as the coffee orders started piling up, I was removed from the machine because I just couldn’t keep up. But of course, my persistence paid off and I slowly began to work my way up to making coffee shots, and that eventually led me to my first pay rise. Good times.

As I had climbed the ranks within the cafe from a mere trainee to a proficient waiter and (self-assumed) decent barista, my shifts changed and I was placed behind the coffee machine more by myself. This slowly caused my ego to rise and made me become delusional at the fact that I am more deserving of a pay rise than anyone in the cafe; I could do almost everything around the shop, I could make good coffee (again self assumptions), and I felt like I needed more for what I put out.

Naturally, the boss was hesitant, but in the end we came to an agreement. After a year of working at the cafe, I received 2 pay raises and I couldn’t have been happier with myself. But how did I not see this coming. A few weeks after getting my raise I realised the amount of hours on my roster rapidly decreased, to the point where I didn’t earn nearly enough to fuel my university lifestyle. Angry and filled with resent, I started looking for other jobs, and found a retail position that offered me decent pay and decent hours. I left the cafe, and started my new job.

A year goes by and the pain of having to travel long hours to get to work (it took an hour to and from by train and walking) and the boredom from my lazy shifts started to rub me the wrong way. I stood in the same corner of a small retail store staring at tourists having fun outside; I had nothing to keep myself occupied with, I couldn’t check my phone or read the newspaper –  It was literally standing for 9 hours. Sure I couldn’t complain about the pay, but something inside me just begged me to leave. And I did just that.

With no job and no new work experience gained, money from my bank account slowly trickling away from social activities and no job offerings in my desired career path. I hung up my pride and returned to the very cafe I left, for a second chance. I was very lucky to get a second chance (I didn’t realise how lucky I was back then) and promised myself to always hang on to this job as a last resort option for when times get rough. Of course my wage dropped a bit, but the hours were fair and I was completely grateful at the time to even think about anything else.

Fast forward to my university graduation. Clearly lady luck favoured me, as I landed a job as a junior art generalist at an indie games studio. Things were looking up, and I thought this could be the career path I wanted most in life – to make it big in the games/art industry. I told my boss at the cafe that I had found a job but was willing to still work here on weekends. 5 days working in a studio and 1 day behind the coffee machine didn’t seem too bad.

I don’t know whether it was part of who I am, but I always held in high regards everything that I did or created. I liked those moments when customers drink the coffee I made and praise me for it when they leave. This was not the case working in the games industry; I was constantly changing my drawings to match the clients desires and I’d say for the most part, I never got to see my artworks in the finished game. This became even more apparent as the studio hired more people; my work slowly got pushed to the backseat and I felt all those hours reiterating drawings never received any form of formal acknowledgement. Comparing this to the respect I get from working as a barista, and it became blatantly obvious. My performance in the studio dropped, and of course the superiors noticed and got rid of me, as I was too expensive to keep around doing nothing (on a side note, I could have earned more working at the cafe per year with the same amount of hours I worked in the studio). 

It was during this time that the cafe changed owners, the business was handed over and I was a bit sad to see my old employers leave; They taught me everything I knew and paid me well for it, I took them for granted at times and as they left I couldn’t help but feel ashamed for what I had put them through.

The new bosses(it was a joint venture) weren’t all that bad but they knew nothing about running a cafe. The main barista and another barista both left because they didn’t get along well with them. I was left to keep the coffee machine running, and that’s when the feeling of responsiblity and purpose returned to my life. I was needed, I was valued, and my contributions mattered to the continual success of the cafe. Of course I was given a pay rise when I left the games studio, and my full time barista job went full bloom.

Over the next two years, while working as a barista I became slightly bored with just ‘making’ coffee. To me, making coffee became second nature and most days I felt like an automated machine, albeit one that could also have a chat with customers while doing so. This slowly developed into a frustration; is this the end of the road for me? Is this what being a barista is all about? Where will I be in the next 5 years and how am I able to earn more with these skills I have honed over the past 4 years?

I sat down, I watched videos of other baristas competing in championships. I was subconsciously comparing myself to them and saying “hey I can do that too, it’s not that hard. Give me some time and I’ll get to his level no problem”. At the same time this was happening, I was still trying to keep my artistic side alive by learning new programs and techniques. It was hard trying to do all this and juggle personal life and a full time job. I was tired and the only thing keeping me going was, funnily enough, the espresso I have at the start of every shift. 

So here I am now writing this obscenely long post, and thinking to myself… “where do I go from here?”.

Well after much thought and strengthening my resolve, I’ve decided to take it upon myself to be more proactive about coffee, I want to experience all the flavours under the sun, build my knowledge up in different disciplines of coffee making to the point where I can perfect my own style and eventually, as you do, make a business of it and do something I truly love. And of course along the way, share the knowledge with anyone who shares the same interests and passion (hence this blog).

My current justification for pursuing something like this is as follows: If I have been working as a barista and never once truly hated doing the same thing over and over again for 4 years, there must be a reason for me to go on and pursue this to the absolute end.

And there you have it. The past is gone, everything begins now.