I love a good café latte, but I’ve been going broke paying $3 and $4 a pop every time I go to the local coffee shop, and that’s just for a tall! So I decided to try and figure out how to make the perfect café latte at home. I’ve tried in the past to make my own (since I’m a die hard do-it-yourselfer), but I could never seem to get the system down to make a really smooth latte at home. They were ok, but tended to be a little bitter and just didn’t have the same verve as the ones from the local coffee shop. There had to be more to it than money!
My love for café latte turned into a passion after I decided to try and cut back on the amount of refined sugar I’m consuming. I’m a coffee guy in the morning. Nothing happens until I get my fix. But I’m also a cream & sugar guy and cutting back on the sugar took part of my enjoyment of my morning coffee (yes, I know what you’re thinking, but turbinado sugar is just as bad for you as white sugar).
Enter the Latte. The natural sweetness of the milk in a well-brewed latte made this the new brew of choice for my morning fix. But the problem still remained. How to get a latte that was just as good as the ones at the coffee shop? That’s when I started scouring some of the great resources on the internet and talking to my brother in law who used to manage a local coffee shop. Turns out that while equipment and ingredients are important, you really get the most bang for the buck with technique.
First of all, it’s important to understand that the longer the brewed espresso sits, the more bitter it gets. Right, we know that about coffee in general, but the minute that espresso is brewed, the clock starts ticking, and fast. So let me go ahead and give you the bottom line… froth your milk first, before brewing your espresso!
Second, pack the espresso grounds. Now, the instructions to my espresso maker said don’t pack the grounds, but they’re wrong. Let me clarify. You don’t want to pack the grounds too much, but just enough to make them firm. You want the hot water to have to work a little bit to percolate through the grind, but you don’t want the grounds packed so tight that the water won’t flow. Too loose and your espresso will be more like hot brown water. To be technical, pack lightly the first time and then harder (around 30lbs of pressure) the second time. But c’mon, who has a way of measuring that except die-hard coffee brewers?
If you’re like me and buy supermarket espresso (but good quality supermarket espresso!) and don’t have the coffee equivalent of a torque wrench, you can make do with a little practice. You basically want to give a firm tamp in the basket until the grounds are well packed and when you brew your espresso it takes about 25 to 30 seconds. That works out for me. If you grind your own espresso, you can also play around with how fine you ground vs. how densely you pack to get the right brew.
Now, every espresso machine is different and everyone’s got their specific technique, but here’s the basics. The faster you can get your steamed & frothed milk mixed into your brewed espresso, the better your latte. The longer your brewed espresso sits there, the more bitter your latte. It’s pretty much that simple. The coffee shops have specialized equipment that lets the barrista do these almost simultaneously, but most people at home can’t. So try this.
Froth your milk first. Get it to a temperature of about 160 degrees. Again, if your like me and don’t happen to have a milk frothing thermometer sitting around your kitchen, use your hand to feel how hot your frothing carafe is. I steam until the stainless steel carafe is too hot to hold in my palm for more than 1-2 seconds. Then I set it aside and brew my espresso. The moment my espresso is done, pour your steamed milk into your brewed espresso and do whatever you like with the froth. Personally, I like to sort of lay it on top and then use a toothpick to draw cute designs in the froth, but that’s another video!
Now if you don’t have an espresso maker, you can consider using an alternative method to brew your latte like a hose end garden sprayer, but in my experience, that doesn’t work so well and leaves a bit of a fertilizer after taste. But hey, maybe you’ll have a better experience!
Have fun. Eat well.