Having lived in SF bay area for so long, I came to know the big coffee culture scene here.
I was totally consumed by it a while ago and spent years trying to attain the “perfect" latte. I published a fun coffee story and my entire home setup, which took weeks of research and multiple iterations, in my blog link in bio.
Meanwhile, to all fellow coffee loving tech peeps, here are some top tips that no one told me. Put it in practice at home or in microkitchens.
- A big factor in preparing milk suitable for latte art is pressure of the wand. If this is important to you, you need to get a machine that has a strong enough pressure.
- When pulling shots, put in 18g of beans and extract 30g of espresso.
- The darker the roast, the coarser the setting should be on the grinder, the lighter the roast, the finer the setting should be.
- When adjusting the grind setting, do so while the grinder is working if there are beans in the hopper. Otherwise, a bean can get stuck between the burrrs.
- Pulling a shot should take 20-30 sec in time, or based on observation. It should look like caramel going out, not a waterfall.
- Eventually work your way to using a bottomless portafilter. It punishes you for all the small imperfections when preparing your coffee puck, like any tilt, and uneven distribution. It does so by spraying the espresso all over the place. The more you can get it to flow uniformly, the better your preparation of espresso, objectively.
- Seal your beans in a vacuum, so they don’t go stale. The more stale the beans, the more minor adjustment you need to make to grind finer.
- When steaming milk in your pitcher, you can tell if it’s done by holding the pitcher and as soon as the heat becomes unbearable i.e. stings, it’s done.
- Taking a latte art course at a local coffee shop was the best boost for me to start nailing latte art.
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