How to Make a Latte

The modern day Latte was not invented by Starbucks.

A cafe in Berkeley, California, Caffe Mediterraneum, claims to have put the word on its menu in the 1950s. And even earlier than that, caffe latte in Italy, café con leche in Spain, and cafe au lait in France were staples of cafes, restaurants and homes going back to the 18th century in some cases.

Starbucks did, however, popularize the latte to the point where everyone knows what it is. It’s safe to say that, if not for Starbucks, the latte would not be a staple on North American cafe menus today.

But what is the latte? What kind of How To will we run here? Will we just tell you how to make a “Lattay Grand-ay”, the way Starbucks does, in all its 20 fluid ounce glory? Detail the diminutive caffe latte of Italy? Show how both are made?

Naw, we’re going to demonstrate the best possible latte recipe you can make today: a beverage that is definitely milk forward (because that’s what lattes are supposed to be), but with a great balancing act performed by the espresso. This is the kind of latte every cafe worth it’s specialty badge should be serving.

The CoffeeGeek Latte is a sub 240ml drink, aiming for a 1:3.5 balance of espresso to steamed milk and microfoam; if you want a bigger latte, everything doubles up. The beverage does have a bit of microam on top — not much, around 5mm — and of course could feature latte art. It’s served in a 240ml (8oz) wide porcelain cup, and shouldn’t be hotter than 65C (150F).

We’ll cover the how to first, then get into a bit of latte history and discussion after.

For this How To, we’re using the Breville Barista Express (available in Canada from idrinkcoffee; in the USA from Amazon) because even though it’s an entry level espresso machine and grinder combo, the steam performance on the machine is quite impressive and well suited to latte microfoam creation. For coffee, we’re the Kenya AB selection from Batdorf and Bronson one of my preferred coffees for use in lattes and other milk espresso drink builds.

Let’s get to the How To!

Choose your milk Everyone’s got their favourite milk, and you can froth just about any milk out there (well, skim’s a bit tough). But for a milk forward drink like the latte, only whole milk will do; if you can’t get whole (or standard) milk, go for 3.25% homogenized.

Optional: Add 10% cream Optionally, and as a way to really kick up this drink’s flavour component, consider adding some 10% cream to your milk: we like a 6:1 ratio of milk to cream.

Preheat machine and cup Before preparing your shot, make sure your espresso machine’s grouphead and portafilter are hot, flushing it with brewing water if necessary, and splash some hot water into your 240ml (8oz) cup.

Grind your coffee After wiping the portafilter dry, grind your dose into the portafilter; we are using a 17g double dose here, but depending on your machine, anything from 14 to 19g is acceptable.

Tamp your coffee This is where a lot of people get espresso wrong, so we wanted to highlight it. You can tamp with 5kg of pressure, or 15kg (or more); it doesn’t really matter other than getting a compressed puck of coffee. But where people get it wrong is, the bed of coffee has to be absolutely dead level. Make sure front to back, side to side, your bed of compressed coffee is perfectly level.

Lock in and press Lock the portafilter into play, and press your double brew button (or activate your machine’s pump switch) to brew the shot.

Brew 45-60ml of espresso The aim here is to brew a normal double of espresso, but as good, if not better a double shot than one you’re brewing to drink as just straight espresso. Make your best shot!

End shot, clean portafilter I’m a firm believer in emptying and cleaning your portafilter right after brewing every shot. It’s easy to forget if you move onto steaming milk right away. Rinse the grouphead too.

Steam your milk for latte use A latte doesn’t require nearly as much foam as a cappuccino does, so start steaming your milk and barely stretching it just at the beginning of your steaming session. As soon as the pitcher starts reaching room temperature, you’ve done enough “stretching” of the foam.

Submerge the wand, continue steaming Once the pitcher is room temperature, submerge the wand and continue steaming. If you’re using a thermometer, steam until the milk is around 62C (140-145F). If you don’t have a thermometer, steam until the pitcher is too uncomfortable to hold with your hand wrapped around it (which is around 50-55C or 130-135F), and then keep steaming for 5-10 seconds more to take the temperature to about 60-65C (145F).

Wipe steam wand, purge Again, it’s always best to do this before pouring your milk – wipe down the steam wand and purge it of any milk that may have been sucked up inside. The longevity of your machine will thank you.

Prepare latte cup Grab your latte cup and give the espresso in it a swirl to slightly coat the sides of the cup. This will aid in better overall distribution of the crema and mix up the espresso in preparation for milk.

Pour your microfoamed milk Give your pitcher a bit of a swirl and tap on the counter to settle any remaining bubbles, then pour your milk into the cup. Seriously, do not worry about doing latte art — it’s so over blown and given way too much credence — just aim to properly mix the microfoamed milk with the espresso by distributing your pour all around the cup. Of course, if you can pour latte art, go for it.

Then enjoy your drink! This is the classic latte, with a ratio of one parts espresso, to 3.5 parts foamed and steamed milk. Milk is the predominant taste here, and espresso is like the “syrup” added to the drink to flavour it. Use great milk, brew a great shot, and this is a drink of fantastic balance.

History of the Latte

Hot milk with coffee goes back centuries in Europe. The Viennese have a history of including milk (and sugar) in their coffees as far back as the 1600s. In Italy, the caffe latte dates back to the 1800s. In Spain, the cafe con leche, ditto. In France, the cafe au lait.

When the steam driven espresso machines started appearing in Italian cafes after 1906, a very early added feature on the machines was a steam wand for steaming milk. Hot milk (ordered as a “latte”), was a staple drink in cafes for children and people who didn’t like espresso, and it wasn’t long after that baristas were adding steamed milk to coffee, copying the caffe lattes of old that added regular brewed coffee to hot milk.

To this day, if you order a “latte” in Italy, chances are you’ll get a cup of steamed milk. You have to order a “caffe latte” to get what we North Americans know as the latte.

In the USA, there’s always a push to claim invention of things. For the longest time, Caffe Reggio in NYC claimed to have invented the cappuccino (they did not); a Berkeley, California cafe called Caffe Mediterraneum claims to have “invented” the latte (they did not) in the 1950s. What they may have done is dropped the “caffe” part from a caffe latte, on their menu, but they were serving a drink popular in Italy for decades by that point.

It wasn’t until Starbucks introduced the ‘latte’ on their menu that the drink became truly mainstream in the USA (and indeed, around the world). The drink was so wildly popular that Starbucks switched to the only dual-boiler commercial espresso machine on the market at the time (the La Marzocco Linea 3 and 4 group machines) because they needed a ginormous steam boiler (some held over 15 litres of water!) to handle all the gallons and gallons of milk steaming their popular drink required. When you’re building dozens and dozens of “lattay grand-ay” (600ml!!!) drinks an hour, that’s a lot of milk steaming.

During the 1990s and early 2000s, the Starbucks style latte was the standard bearer, but specialty cafes in Seattle (lead by Espresso Vivace, Cafe Allegro, Torrefazione Italia, Caffe Vita and others) developed their own take on the latte, one that was more grounded in the Italian way of building the drink. Espresso Vivace in particular specialized in the 8oz latte with, you guessed it, latte art on top, something Schomer introduced to Seattle in 1992 after seeing photos of it produced in Italy.

Powdered Pour One way to really, really accentuate and highlight latte art pours for lattes is to give the espresso a dusting of chocolate powder before pouring the milk. A lot of cafes do this automatically just to highlight the latte art.

By 2005, there were essentially two types of lattes in North America: the Starbucks way that didn’t care much about ratios, and the ratio specific one produced by specialty cafes. The ratio specific one never went above 1:4 for espresso to milk, and usually stayed around the 1:3 ratio.

The Latte in Culture and Politics

No drink in the specialty coffee world has been more judged, more preconceived, and more mocked than the latte. Blue collar, Tim Hortons drinkers see anyone who orders a latte as, at best, a snob, and at worst, as an effete poseur. TV and movies have long made fun of the self-important type who goes into Starbucks with a 20 word drink order for their style of latte. Calling someone a “latte drinker” is the same as calling them an out-of-touch elitist who has no sense of actual taste or style.

Latte with froth level visible A proper latte doesn’t actually have a lot of foam; as you can see here, there’s less than 5mm of foam at the top of this cup.

In the specialty coffee world, people who prefer lattes are often perceived as people who “don’t like the taste of coffee or espresso”. Our own forums are very guilty of that preconception, but there is some merit to it as well. Here’s why.

The thing is, a properly made latte, adhering to the 1:3 ratio with the milk steamed to the perfect temperature, and just a small 5mm of microfoam on top that’s been mixed with the crema, is a very nice beverage. One of the biggest mistakes with lattes (besides getting the ratio wrong) is the milk temperature. You’ll see latte drinkers ordering their drink of choice with the milk “hot” or worse, “extra hot”. In cafe parlance that’s milk that is above 70C. Those are folks who definitely don’t have much in the way of tuned taste buds.

The problem with steaming milk that hot is this: milk goes through a lot of chemical changes once it gets past 65C. Above that temperature, fats start to boil, some liquid components convert to gas (phase change in sciencey parlance), and milk starts to “seperate”. You know that scalded milk smell? It happens once you reach 70C when part of the milk separates and boils off or burns.

This should be avoided at all cost. A proper latte retains super sweet lactose in its microfoam, and is a complete (ie not separating) liquid below the microfoam that sits at 60-65C max temperature. When this happens the balance of the milk to espresso remains pleasing and complimentary.

At the end of the day, you should enjoy the latte the way you best see fit. But if you want the best possible balance between milk and espresso, stick to these basics: maintain a 1:3 ratio of espresso to milk; never steam your milk above 145C (62C), and use the best and freshest milk you can. It’ll be one of the best lattes you’ve ever had.

Vince Piccolo, Circa 2002, Pouring a Latte Back when there was literally just one or two cafes in Canada pouring latte art, this was the guy who brought it to Canada: Vince Piccolo, then of Caffe Artigiano, demonstrating their signature latte art pour.

Machine and Coffees used for this How To

– Breville Barista Express (available in Canada from idrinkcoffee; in the USA from Amazon).
–  Kenya AB selection from Batdorf and Bronson.

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