How to Pour Latte Art - Heart

It's always a good idea to make sure that your espresso is tasting the perfect as it also has an effect on latte art pouring. Perfectly extracted espresso is velvety and smooth which makes it easier to the milk to mix well to the espresso. This is crucial for latte art! 

Brown cup

Start by pouring from a bit higher to the middle of the cup. This way the milk will sink underneath the espresso and you will get better contrast to your latte art - sharp pattern and bright brown outsides. This start is called "brown cup" as you are trying to keep the cup brown.

The brown cup phase you might want to pour everywhere in the cup to keep the drink moving. This will break surface tension which lets the patterns to spread in the later sections. Keep in going with this until the cup is about 50% full.

Pouring the heart pattern

Once your cup is 50% full, you want to go as close to the surface of drink as possible. Start by pouring to the middle of the cup to a one spot - the milk will start forming a "ball". 

The longer and faster you pour to the middle and keep it in the one spot, the bigger your "ball" will become. 

Once your cup starts to be full (as in the picture below), it's time to pour through the "ball" and create the actual heart. 

Draw through

As I wrote above, the draw through (= pouring across the "ball") will create the heart pattern. Before pouring through the "ball" you might want to keep 0,5-1 sec pause - this will kind of lock the "ball" to its place and it won't slide when you are pouring through it.  

Draw through is easy and simple; all you need to do is to pour steadily through the "ball". Don't be too fast or slow; too fast draw through will make your heart look like bunny ears and on the other hand too slow draw through won't divide the "ball" to a heart.

There we have it - latte art pattern heart! 

Few tips and tricks how to make it better;

• if the ball isn't forming, you are not close enough to the surface of the drink or you are pouring too slow
• always remember the basics of latte art pouring; tilting the cup to get closer to the surface and pouring 90 degree angle to the cup
• latte art patterns require microfoam - check out this blog how to steam the perfect milk
• if you have different types of milk pitchers, choose one with a wider pouring spout for pouring a heart