Classic and Asian Heart in Latte Art

Techniques for the classic and Asian heart

Let's move on to the next topic. In this article, I will tell you about the most basic drawing to start your journey in latte art. It is one of the simplest and most complex at the same time. This is the heart. 

Drawing technique

‍Do the first steps as you learned in the previous part of the course. Pour the milk into the espresso and stir, making a continuous drip.

 Pour the milk until it is filled at an angle of about 30 degrees. 

However, keep in mind that the later you start drawing - with the same milk pressure - the smaller the element will be. But in this case, the heart may be small, but neat. Either it's big, but it can float away, or it's small, but it's neat. 

Now let's deal with this. Let's imagine a situation: I started drawing a heart, made a dig, poured in milk, and suddenly stopped before drawing. I decided to think about whether I have enough cup filling for drawing, for example. At this point, I can already forget about high-quality latte art.

Every second of downtime counts during drawing. The milk has already begun to peel off from the foam - by the way, from most of the foam, because almost all of it that goes into the cup from above in one fell swoop-and you will be much more difficult to draw after stopping. As soon as we paused, all the foam from below rose to the surface, became viscous, not elastic, and the next infusions will only sink and fall out like a cap on the background.

Therefore, it is very important not to stop. As soon as you fill the cup to the desired volume - immediately draw latte art, lay out the elements. 

The second is the point where I start drawing. This is approximately the center of the surface of the drink in the cup, slightly shifted to the edge, not deep into the cup.

 I'll start drawing early, and if the element was laid out properly, it's 100% likely that it will float slightly forward and stand just in the center. This is difficult at the initial stage, but even if you put the heart not in the center, but just on top - you have already won. 

What is the heart made of? There is nothing complicated about the heart, except that it must always be done perfectly. We start drawing, as we did before, just above the center of the cup. We started and gradually pushed the pitcher closer to the center. 

What is important: while we are drawing, the pitcher should always be leaning against the cup until the last moment-cutting. If we tear the pitcher away from the cup after we seem to have laid out the element and continue pouring milk, the drawing will sink from the same milk or stretch forward, and then disappear altogether. After that, it definitely won't get any bigger. It will change or sink, but it will definitely not be any more. Therefore, throughout the drawing, we keep the pitcher pressed against the cup. We break away from it only at the moment when the place is almost over and the last stroke remains - strikethrough.

In my experience, when drawing a heart, you should have about 15 to 20 percent of the space left in the cup. In addition to crossing out the element, you also need to stretch it forward a little so that the drawing does not look like a crossed-out ball, but takes on the shape of a heart.

Another common mistake that we have already discussed in previous parts is a sharp alignment. When you poured the milk into the espresso, you began to lay out the pattern and immediately leveled the cup so that the milk did not spill over the edge. The entire drawing, of course, will sink from such actions. Smooth out gradually, with a constant tilt of the cup. 

Another mistake is that the barista does not lift the pitcher from the cup at the very end when it is necessary to make the cut and makes it very low. Because of this, it's not the heart that comes out, but the carrot:)

Mistakes in laying out hearts

‍The first mistake is drawing later. The cup was very full before drawing, which is why the heart, if it turns out, will be extremely small.

Second: drawing too close to the edge. This caused the drawing to be shifted up. The drawing will work, but it will not be in the center but at the top of the cup. 

I already mentioned that this is not bad. If you have such a heart, move on. Try to deepen it by pushing the pitcher forward a little. 

The third mistake is drawing too deep in the cup. The drawing is poorly laid out, very blurry on the surface and looks pretentious and ugly.  

Fourth point: drawing too early. When there is still a lot of free space in the cup and the barista is already starting to draw. The drawing will simply spread out on the surface, will be strongly twisted inwards and will turn out to be curved. The sooner we start drawing, the more likely it is that the drawing will float away somewhere.

Fifth, we repeat, stop in the spread. The barista fills the cup to the desired volume, waits for a few seconds and begins to lay out the drawing. He can do his best, but at the very beginning of drawing, a good part of the milk and foam will sink, which could lie on the surface and create a beautiful drawing. The drawing is smaller. 

And the sixth and most important thing is the insufficient tilt of the cup. When we draw, we sharply align the cup and the heart turns out to be small and inconspicuous.

Asian Heart

‍I call this heart Asian, because on YouTube, in tiktok and other social networks. "This heart is mostly drawn by Asians. So to speak, they set the trend. The heart that contains Rosetta. It looks beautiful, although, from the point of view of a classic heart, it is fundamentally wrong. At the championship, such a heart will score less points than the classic one, but the consumer, the guest, may find it much more beautiful than the classic one. 

When you draw it, it will be several times larger than the classic one. Additional spreading of milk from side to side, as in rosetta, expands the element. But, what's the salt, there will always be coffee flecks inside the heart. They should be there in the case of this drawing, but they are the same mistake that distinguishes them from the classic heart. 

How do I make it? While drawing, when you start to lay out the drawing, try to spread the milk from side to side, as if you are drawing a rosetta, but staying with the spout in the center of the cup. In fact, we draw rosetta, but without lengthening it. Gradually, the element will twist until it turns into a heart. At the end, you just need to cut it:)

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