Latte Art

 

 

 

Whether you like to drink coffee or not,
I bet that this kind of art will be your cup of tea 😄

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Again the inspiration for this article was found in the book Wild Art by David Carrier and Joachim Pissarro.

After talking about toilet roll art and beach art in previous articles (both art forms which were also introduced to me by the same book) today it's time to present 'latte art'.

 

 

 

 

 

First of all, let me tell you what 'a latte' is exactly.

Because to be honest, I thought it was just normal coffee with milk (yes, you can definitely tell I'm not a coffee drinker).

But apparently it's the combination of a single or double shot of espresso with steamed milk.

The difference with a cappuccino (which consists of the same ingredients) is the fact that a cappuccino is distinctly layered, while in a latte the espresso and steamed milk are blended together.

 

Some baristas are very creative in making all sorts of drawings while preparing a latte and that's how 'latte art' came into being.

Did you know there even exist real championships?

The World Latte Art Championship is an annual contest which started back in 2005. If you want to discover some talented baristas, you can take a look at the past rankings here.

But there are also more regional contests (with international participants), like for example the Milano Latte Art Challenge.

In the book Wild Art there's only one latte artist's name mentioned. But when I began to google and learned about these championships, I found many more.

 

Um Paul from South-Korea (the barista whose creations I'll show you) is my favourite one.

 

He already won several latte championships and an interesting interview about how he came to make latte art and what it means to him can be read here.

 

Not only are his little artworks incredible, but the movie in which he shows you how to make them is one of the best I found on the internet as well (both the filming and the relaxing music).

In less than 30 minutes you'll see many different patterns and as the saying goes: "He saves the best for last."

 

Although every creation is really beautiful, the first ones are sometimes a bit more common and thus can be seen in lots of similar Youtube-movies.

But starting from 7'03'' there are four different swan-patterns shown.

And starting from 10'43'' you'll get blown away by one original piece of art after the other.

Revealing too much about them, would take away the element of surprise.

So discover these fantastic little coffee paintings for yourself and I guarantee you they'll put a smile on your face!