This New Year, I decided to learn how to make latte art – simply out of enthusiasm. I bought my first espresso machine: the Breville Bambino. Small enough to fit on the limited kitchen counter space, with all the basic features one needs to make a good latte. Limited to non-dairy options, my first mission was to learn the basics: how to pull a satisfactory espresso shot with decent level of crema and how to time and angle the milk pitcher to achieve a specific texture of foam while steaming oat milk. Thanks to the wonderful world of YouTube for many free tutorials on this.
I have never worked at a cafe in my life but am quite an avid customer. Since I’m not serving dozens of people a day at home, this limits me to just a handful of practice sessions per week. As you can imagine, unlike with violin, these are very short practice sessions. There are no do-overs. There is no opportunity of consecutive trial and error when learning how to pour basic latte art with such a limitation – at least not in a row.
Continue reading “What Latte Art Taught Me About Performance Practice”
