3 Tips to Improve Latte Art

What's up everyone? Lance Hedrick here. And today we're going to take a look at the top three tips to improve your latte art. So I would like to ask that first, you hit that subscribe button, hit the like button, maybe leave a comment or something to help the video out. I am going to do my best to continually provide you with high quality videos of things that can help you with your brewing at home or in a cafe. So yeah, go ahead and hit that. Check out the Patreon below. I also have one of those in order to increase my production value and as well as the equipment that I use in these videos. Anyway, let's get going. So today I'm going to look at three tips that I want to give off to you that will improve your latte art almost immediately. We're going to look at an example of each preceded by an example of what would happen if you don't do the tips that I'm giving, which these are very common flaws that I see. And so I'm going to give you fixes for them. So if you see any of these things in the mistake pours that I make, then your fix should be given to you right here. So the first one that we're going to look at is spout proximity. Even though I preach this all the time, I still see people pour way too far away from the surface level of the liquid. So first thing we're going to look at is spout proximity. Second thing is where you're starting your design. So often I see people thinking, well, if I want the heart in the middle of the cup, I need to start to pour in the middle of the cup. No, you need to start higher up in the cup. We need to start higher up. Where you drop in is going to be the top of your shape if it's a one pour shape. And the more stacks you do in a shape or the more layers you do in a shape, the deeper you need to start your design. And then finally, what we're going to take a look at is pushing forward during the design. So often I see people freak out and drift backwards, whether it's on a heart, whether it's on a tulip, whether it's on any of those things, you always need to push forward. So let's get started with spout proximity. So I'm going to get my shot and my milk prepared and I'm going to show you an improper example and then we'll show you how to fix it. All right, so this is what it looks like when you don't have good spout proximity. We're going to lay our base, but then watch. See how far away I am from the top? Look, look. So as you see here, because I was so far away, that white wasn't able to come out crisply. The force of gravity and that increasing velocity of the milk forced the foam to kind of submerge just somewhat and it caused this beiging out. You see that? So I'm going to pour another Rosetta with the same ripple rate, but I'm going to do it with a close spout proximity. So let's go ahead and watch this again up close with a slow-mo so that you can see what I'm talking about. The further up you are, the more side-to-side whipping is going to happen. The closer the spout is, the less side-to-side is going to happen because you're much closer. There's not as much room for that milk to come out and sway side-to-side. This is going to give us more control and more capability of those lines to flow up in the cup instead of getting stunted as they hit. So let's watch that slow-mo, then we'll go to a good example. Here's an example of close spout proximity. We get really close. So as you see there, I have really crisp white lines that came out because I got really close to the surface of that liquid. That allowed that foam to skate out on top as opposed to sink and beige out. So as we see these side-by-side, you see how big of a difference it is. Not only did my wraps go up higher because I was allowing the malleability of the surface to take effect when I was close and allowing those small side-to-side ripples, but on top of that, I was able to negate that beige-out part and was able to get crisp white and crisp brown as opposed to this beige-y color. So the second one, as I said, is going to be where you drop in the cup. So spout proximity is very important. That's the first one. The second one is where we're dropping. So very often what I see people do is with a heart, they'll drop in the center. And what happens is that shoots the design to the back of the cup and it can cause the base to blow out. When you get too close to the back, then you're getting too much velocity of that foam coming out and it can hit the back wall quickly and cause the base to flatten. You want to start higher in your cup. What I always tell people is if they're doing a rippled heart, to start at the one-quarter mark and when they're done, they should finish about the three-quarter marks. Alright, so you start behind halfway and finish past halfway. That's what I typically tell people. Start up higher in that cup. Now if we expand to more than one shape or more than one drop, and a drop just refers to, okay, there's one drop of foam and here's another drop of foam. The more drops we do, the deeper in the cup we can go because every successive pour is going to cause the preceding pours to wrap higher and higher and higher. If you think about it, if we're starting up here, if this is where we're pouring is right up here, okay? Then if we start here and we pour more into that first design, so let's say we do a ripple right here and then we pour more into it, it's going to wrap up quickly and it's going to kind of look like an onion. But if we start the ripple down here, we could put a tier here, a tier here, and a tier here. And the whole time, this is going to stretch to where the sink hole is, alright? Now if some of these terms are unfamiliar to you, please make sure you watch my Ultimate Guide to Latte Art. I also have smaller versions of them that you can look at and get a good sense of what's going on, but that Ultimate Guide is going to really help you follow along. Anyway, let's go ahead and get to the improper way to find your beginning. I don't know what I'm trying to say here. Let's do an example of going too deep in the cup for a heart, and then I'll show you an example of doing a proper heart and an example of doing a two-tiered design and where you should start that. And we're going to get the shot and everything prepped in. Here's an example of going too deep in the cup. So let's watch this rippled heart here. So watch closely. I'm going to start too deep in the cup. So as you see, at the beginning it started to blow out a bit and you have a little bit of a horizontal issue going on. Also you see I wasn't able to wrap all the way because I was trying to get it to wrap throughout the whole cup, which just isn't possible. So if you look closely, we have the heart in the bottom part of the cup. If I didn't have such thick crema, this is really freshly roasted coffee, it would have blown the base out even more. With less thick crema, there's going to be less of that viscosity. This would have blown out even more and would be more horizontal on the bottom. So that's what you see whenever you drop too low. So I dropped right about here and that's where the shape kind of stopped, is right where I was. So I'm going to do another one with a proper where I'm supposed to be dropping, which is back here, just behind halfway. And I'm going to get that set up right now. Alright, so here is the first good example of placement. Alright, so on this one I'm going to place up right behind halfway, see right here, and now I'm rippling. So as you see with that one, I have a much more full design. I was able to get a rounded shape as opposed to that flat bottom. So let's see them side by side, and there you go. This one actually fills the cup because I started up here and filled it. This one I started too low and wasn't able to do it. So let's do another example, but with a two-tiered shape. Alright, so here is an example with a two-tiered shape where you need to drop a little lower. So watch, I'm going to drop right at halfway instead. But watch, because I'm doing another shape, watch how that base is wrapping up. So because I did a two-tiered shape, there's four layers but two tiers, so tier one is that rippled base, tier two is this. I needed to drop a little further in the cup, but you see how it still wraps up all the way. So these are the examples that you want to do based off of where you're dropping. The more tiers you're doing in your cup, one, two, the more deep you want to drop with your first drop. The less tiers, the less deep in the cup. So if it's a one-tier design, so if it's a three-layered heart or a rippled heart, you want to start right about here. If it's a two-tier, you want to start about halfway. Three-tier and more, you want to start at the bare minimum halfway, if not a little further down. Because with each successive tier, it's going to wrap the design higher and higher. All right, so the final tip to immediately improve your latte art is to move forward with your designs. So unless you're doing a Rosetta where obviously you move back, you need to always move forward. And even with Rosetta, you move forward at the beginning of the design. So often I see people doing hearts or doing different designs where they're kind of drifting backwards. So I'm going to show you what I'm talking about when I see people doing these onion type of hearts, where instead of rippling forward as you saw in the second step, which was where you drop, if you go back and watch my rippled heart, you see I ripple forward the whole time. I'm always moving forward. If you drift back, you're going to get an onion. We don't want onions. We're not Shrek. Layers. All right? Shreks are ogres. Ogres are made of layers, not parfaits, not cakes. Everybody loves a parfait, I know, but we're not doing that. We don't want onions. We don't want parfaits. We want voluptuous, lineated hearts. Okay? Thank you. All right, here's the bad example of not pushing forward. So watch. I'm going to start here, and it's going nice and good, nice and good, but watch, I'm just going to kind of... Now look at this. Look at this. The lines don't wrap. We have a frigging onion. That's an onion. You see how the lines are kind of frilled up like this? It's almost like a, it's like a fat feather. It's like the plumage, the top plumage of a peacock, okay? We're not watching, we're not streaming Peacock Plus here. What we're trying to do is make a lineated heart. This isn't a heart, except for maybe you could argue that middle part is sort of a heart, but really, this is an onion. This is an ogre. This is Shrek, and it's not acceptable. All right, so on this one, I'm going to place up right behind halfway, see right here, and now I'm rippling. All right, so here's an example, following the good heart, of pushing forward. So we're going to start our design. Start out here, and we're going to ripple forward, forward, forward, forward, forward, forward, forward, forward. Start here. Forward, forward, forward, forward. We're going to go here. And forward. So as you see, with each successive tier, I rippled forward, forward, forward. Forward, forward, forward. Forward push, forward push, to make sure they wrapped all the way. And there we have a fully-wrapped design because of the successive pushes. No onion. Alright, well I guess it's time to wrap up. Thank you so much for watching the three tips to immediately improve your latte art. Again, if you enjoyed the video, please, you know, hit the subscribe, hit the like, turn on the bell notifications, so you can see all the goodies that come from this channel. You know, if you don't, well, you know, okay, I'm just going to drink my steam milk anyway. Just a little leftover. Tastes delicious. So sweet and nice. Anyway, thank you so much for watching. I do appreciate it. Until next time, I hope you brew something tasty, and cheers.