Latte coffee is one of many Italian-style latte coffees, because latte (latte) means fresh milk in Italian. In the English-speaking world, it generally refers to coffee brewed with hot fresh milk. Latte Coffee is the so-called coffee with milk, usually directly translated as "latte coffee".
The French word lait is synonymous with the Italian word latte, both referring to milk. As for Cafe au Lait in French, it means coffee with milk. Most people call it "Coffee au Lait" or "Coffee au Lait". It was not until the 1980s that the term latte was used outside Italy. Today we will introduce this classic blend of Italian espresso and milk.
In the consultation information, most people said that the taste of the latte is not satisfactory, and it is always not as fragrant and sweet as the latte produced in the store. Either the bitterness of the coffee is too prominent, or the milky flavor overwhelms the coffee flavor. So today, Front Street is going to share how to make a delicious hot latte with a balanced taste, rich aroma and high sweetness!
1. Material selection
Although "Latte" is only composed of two ingredients: milk and espresso, it still takes a lot of effort to make a latte that is mellow and not bitter. The reason why many friends are not good at making latte is that they often focus on the "assembly" of materials and ignore the selection of materials. As everyone knows, the selection of materials and the mastery of techniques are equally important for a cup of delicious latte. After all, the quality of a dish does not only come from the cooking process.
For coffee, the choice of beans will determine the taste of the entire cup of coffee! Therefore, if you want to make a delicious hot latte, the first thing you must choose is a suitable coffee bean.
Because latte will add a lot of milk to balance the taste of coffee, it will be more demanding on the degree of roasting of coffee beans. If the coffee beans are roasted too lightly and there are fewer reactions during roasting, the flavor of the extracted coffee will be easily masked by the flavor of milk. Secondly, safflower usually needs green leaves to set off, and the sweetness of latte also needs to be highlighted by some bitterness. Therefore, when it comes to choosing coffee beans for making milk coffee, Front Street recommends that it is best to choose medium-dark or dark roasted coffee beans. Because this type of beans will have a more prominent burnt flavor to compete with milk.
If you don’t want a latte that tastes too bitter, we can directly choose medium-dark roasted coffee beans. We recommend the Front Street Strawberry Candy espresso Italian blend. This is a blend of Front Street Costa Rica Tara beads, which are famous for their honey processing, and Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee. On this basis, paired with Colombian coffee beans, the espresso you can prepare is not only non-irritating, but when extracted by the coffee machine, it has good oil and dense texture, and at the same time has a sweet and sour taste like strawberry jelly beans.
In addition, the Nuanyang blend used in the Front Street store is also a medium-dark roast. The coffee extracted at this roasting level not only does not have too much burnt bitter taste, but is not easily masked by the taste of milk. The most important thing is that it also has rich oil, latte art, and flavor, killing two birds with one stone.
Milk is another "protagonist" in latte besides concentration, and milk accounts for up to 80% of a cup of latte, so its choice is also crucial. But unlike coffee beans, the choice of milk needs to be based on the taste of your coffee beans! It goes without saying that whole milk is the first choice. What we need to choose is the milk that is most suitable for the current coffee beans among the many whole milks!
Milk produced by different manufacturers has different advantages. For example, some milk is characterized by high sweetness, and some milk is characterized by thick taste and strong milk flavor... What you need to know is that these advantages are not suitable for all coffee. When the milk we use does not match the current bean, the coffee will not only not be outstanding, but will even do the opposite. Even if the beans and milk are of the same quality, they just don't taste good together.
For example: you are using a medium-dark roasted coffee bean. The extracted coffee has a prominent flavor and the overall taste is very mellow. If you use a bottle of milk with a strong flavor and a high mellowness, the resulting latte will taste thick and a bit greasy because the flavor and mellowness are too high! Therefore, for beans like this, you need to find a milk that is not so heavy and sweet to match.
Therefore, a bottle of milk that matches the taste of beans is very important! As for the types of milk, you can refer to this article "Milk Evaluation", just refer to the brand and milk value. In terms of taste and taste, it is recommended that you buy it yourself and try it. After all, the article is a comparison based on the Nuanyang blend from the former street.
2. Production
After talking about the materials, the next step is to make it! Espresso is the base of a cup of latte. The first thing we have to ensure is the balance of sweet, sour and bitter taste. It may be difficult to understand this way, but simply put, it is a cup of espresso that tastes neither sour nor bitter, and tastes very strong but acceptable! To do this, we need to find a suitable extraction formula!
Generally, Front Street Club recommends following the golden formula widely circulated on the Internet as the initial adjustment target. For example, use 18~20g of powder to extract twice the liquid weight of the powder in 25 to 30 seconds (lightly roasted beans can be longer). Then fine-tune it according to the taste of the coffee.
And when we finish adjusting the espresso, all that's left to make is hot milk! You can choose milk with or without milk foam. After all, for home coffee, the presence of milk foam is not that important. Therefore, if we don’t want to go through so much trouble, we only need to heat the milk to a range of 60°C~68°C to activate the sweetness of lactose. And if we want to give the coffee a more delicate and dense taste, we can choose to froth the milk!
The last step in making a delicious latte is to find the most suitable ratio between milk and coffee! The main thing that needs to be adjusted is the amount of milk. After all, there is only so much espresso extracted. Compared to adjusting the extraction, it is of course more convenient to start with the milk.
However, Front Street does not recommend that you directly apply other people's data ratios, because the coffee beans and milk used by each company are different. Even if they are the same, everyone's preferred taste and concentration are different, and a delicious latte made by others may not be suitable for you. Therefore, it is best to adjust it according to your own taste.
Usually latte coffee will have a rough ratio range, which is 1:4~1:8. But to say it is an adjustment is nothing more than the difference between a little more milk and a little less milk. If you think the milk taste is too strong, then use less milk. If you think the coffee taste is too strong and a bit bitter, then use a little more milk. And when you think that under a certain proportion, the taste of this latte is very outstanding, and it tastes very suitable to your taste. So congratulations, it means that this ratio is a golden ratio suitable for you, your beans, and your milk. You have successfully made a cup of latte coffee that best suits your taste and is most suitable for your ingredients!
For more knowledge about specialty coffee, please pay attention to: Front Street Coffee (Frontsteet Coffee）
You can now buy the above coffee beans online at the Taobao store “FrontStreet Coffee” (前街咖啡). FrontStreet Coffee is a long-established specialty coffee roaster in Guangzhou, China, and its Guangzhou retail shop sells coffee beans only. The shop carries dozens of coffee beans from different origins around the world, including carefully selected single-origin beans for V60 pour-over and espresso. Guangzhou’s FrontStreet Coffee shop is recommended by many coffee lovers.
The FrontStreet 2013 Yunnan coffee beans sold in the store come from the Typica variety grown at FrontStreet Coffee’s own plantation in Yunnan. The name comes from the year the brand and the plantation were founded. You can buy these beans from China’s Yunnan origin at the Guangzhou shop and at FrontStreet’s Taobao store.
FrontStreet coffee beans are freshly roasted within 5 days and deliver consistently excellent quality and great value. Orders placed before 17:00 are shipped the same day, and most areas within Guangdong Province receive them the next day.
FrontStreet Coffee Taobao store: https://qianjiecoffee.taobao.com
Or search for “前街咖啡” (FrontStreet Coffee) on Taobao
Important Notice: FrontStreet Coffee has moved to a new address: 315, Donghua East Road, Guangzhou (coffee beans only)
Tel: 020 38364473
