The Art of Pre-Pouring in Latte Art

How Pre-Pouring Affects Latte Art

In this article, we will look at what components the drawing is made of. First action: pour and stir. This is called Pre-Pouring in.

Second, stirring and filling the desired volume for the drawing.

Third, we touch the pitcher to the cup and lay out the element or elements.

Gradually tilt the cup, leveling it. And the fourth, strikethrough.

With a neat and thin trickle, we try to draw the line as evenly as possible, dividing the drawing in half. Cross it out at the moment when the cup is almost full.

What a tulip, what a heart, what a rosetta, all these drawings consist of these four actions. Now we will analyze each of them in detail.

‍

Pre-Pouring in

‍Why do I need to dig in? First, let's see what types of Pre-Pouring there are.

Classic. This applies to all drawings. Add a small amount of milk to the espresso and then stir. Why do we do this? One of the most important things is taste. When we mix a small portion of milk with espresso, we raise the espresso cream to a milky froth. By mixing them with milk, we make the taste of the future drink a little more balanced and creamy, especially the first sip. Dripped, mixed until smooth and continue to pour. With classic Pre-Pouring, the background is more uniform and contrasting.

No Pre-Pouring in

‍What happens if you don't draw without Pre-Pouring in? Well, first of all, the background will not be uniform. Some of them will be coffee, and some will be more milky. There will be streaks and stains that play a negative role in latte art.

‍

Details of classic Pre-Pouring in

A couple of nuances that may arise for a novice barista in Pre-Pouring in. 

First, if the motor skills of your non-working hand are poorly developed and it is difficult for you at the initial stage to mix milk with espresso after Pre-Pouring - this advice is for you. Learn to stir faster with your non-working hand:)

Second, stir the milk constantly in the pitcher while you dig in. The foam peels off the milk very quickly, it will always tend to go up from the day. Depending on how lush it is, this may affect the rate of peeling, but it still happens.  Therefore, frequent and intensive stirring is an important point that should be observed. Most mistakes baristas make are due to the fact that they do not control the mixing of milk during the Pre-Pouring process.

Tip: Try to mix the cup and pitcher at the same time after Pre-Pouring in. This way, the motor skills of both hands will be synchronized faster and it will be easier for you to train the non-working hand to mix correctly.

Remember: time is playing against you when drawing. As soon as you have whipped up the milk, knocked it out and the first drop of milk touches the espresso-you can't stop now. One small pause and you will no longer draw high-quality latte art, all actions must be coordinated and honed. The faster you work, the better you'll get. The only time we can make a stop is probably 3D latte art, when we are making a three-dimensional drawing in height and we need a lush and exfoliated foam.

The next point. The amount of milk that you add to the dig depends on how much the background becomes milky. It is not necessary to pour too much, just one short movement is enough. Tip a small portion of the milk into a cup of espresso and basta. The main thing is that it is convenient for you to mix milk with espresso, without spilling all the mass on the table during fluctuations. And if you drop a lot - you can say goodbye to this opportunity.

Stirring with your left hand

‍The faster you learn how to mix espresso with milk by constantly shifting the cup from your non-working hand to your working hand, the better it will be for you. This moment is both complex and extremely simple, and from experience I can say that very few people devote time to training it.

The easiest way is to stir in a circular motion towards yourself, regardless of whether you are right-handed or left-handed. Usually, self-driving movements are easier to do. Your task is to rotate the liquid as intensively as possible, but so that it does not splash out. You need to spend some time on this. Pour the liquid into the cup and practice rotating it first. Not necessarily coffee or milk, just water is enough.

The second point is to train right on the table. It is not necessary to hold the cup in the air, it is better to let it stand on the table. This will be much easier for you, you will quickly get used to the horizontal position of the cup, and you only need to mix it while holding the cup horizontally, otherwise everything will spill.

How long can it take to learn how to shuffle with a non-working hand? Always in different ways. For some, it comes out the first time, for others, three attempts are enough, but on average it takes from half an hour to an hour, no more. If you spend at least half an hour learning, you will learn. It's reinforced concrete. But you need to spend this time on continuous training. 

‍

Coffee Rotation Training

‍The main thing is to learn consistently. First, try making one spin. Make sure that your coffee does not just swing from side to side, but rather rotates in a circle in the cup.

When you manage to make one circular motion, try adding another one. Consistently, the easiest way is to prepare yourself psychologically. As soon as you feel confident or get bored with twirling the cup twice, the next step is three spins. Then keep adding spins, trying to do as much as possible, until you can do it non-stop and feel the inertia of the coffee in the cup.

Once you've learned how to more or less rotate the coffee in the cup with your non-working hand, you can already try the classic prick without changing hands and already hold the cup in the air. We have made a dig - hold the cup strictly horizontally! - stir everything until smooth and draw. This will be much more effective than constantly shifting the cup from hand to hand. And this, as I said earlier, affects the consistency and elasticity of your milk.

By the way, there is a wonderful life hack. If you are still not very good at mixing on the weight, set aside the pitcher for a second and help with your working hand, holding the cup by the bottom. 

You will sort of interfere with the working hand and train the second one in this way. With the same makar, you can also not remove the pitcher from your hand. It is enough to lean the pitcher a little against the cup, fixing it, and you can mix. At the same time, the milk will also be mixed, albeit a little. 

Continuous Pre-Pouring

‍If you have already learned how to stir with a non-working hand without using the other hand, then it's time to move on to the next technique - continuous Pre-Pouring. During continuous dipping, we pour the milk into the cup and mix the milk with the espresso without stopping, smoothly moving to the second and further drawing phases, without interrupting the stream. There are a lot of advantages and benefits for you that you may not even realize at the beginning. At first, it seems that it's just faster and looks much more professional. But in fact, there are more pluses. 

The main advantage, as I said, is speed. Continuously pour in the milk and stir it. Second, using this method, you can avoid the so-called first drop. 

The same drop of milk that forms on the surface of the drink, after Pre-Pouring. When mixed, it tightens and the coffee becomes homogeneous, but we are not immune from the fact that it may appear with further infusion of milk. Continuous Pre-Pouring allows us to avoid white spots on the surface. By the way, if we can easily cope with the first drop just by mixing the liquids well together, then it is much more difficult to fight with the second drop, after Pre-Pouring, as the drink becomes thicker and there is more of it in the cup than at the beginning, which makes mixing difficult.

Eating a spot

‍But there is a practical way to get rid of the stain, if continuous Pre-Pouring is still difficult. To sink it, pour the milk from side to side, moving the pitcher left and right sequentially until the spot sinks to the bottom, in one even line. You don't need to move the trickle of milk in a circle, just from side to side. At the same time, these are not the same oscillatory movements as in rosetta, they are just the pitcher's movements. The trickle should be just as thin, and you don't need to increase or decrease it. Imagine that you are erasing a piece of paper with an eraser. 

‍

Infusion and stirring

‍What else should I add for Pre-Pouring in? Stirring the milk. A common mistake is to constantly stir espresso and just a little bit of milk. They pay a lot of attention to the rotation of espresso, although it is not necessary to interfere with it, in fact. Attention, meanwhile, you need milk. It is constantly peeling off. The more it looks like thick water, with a glossy foam, the better.

Second, learn how to make a smooth transition from mixing to infusing. This is very important, it depends on how good our drawing will be and how well it will be laid out. But first of all, it affects the background. Strive for contrast, try not to create unnecessary streaks and drops. You can draw elements worse, but if the background is too steep, the drawing will get a higher rating. For a guest, this background is also more appetizing than a background with streaks. 

Now we will analyze the simultaneous infusion with mixing. First, we pour a thin trickle of milk into the center of the espresso.

I remind you that if you hesitate or get distracted before starting drawing, stir the milk in the pitcher. Not just small fluctuations, but very good ones, so that it does not peel off. As much as possible, but not to spill out. 

Pour the milk in the center, hold the cup strictly horizontally.  After that, we immediately begin to turn the milk and espresso, without interrupting the milk stream. After a while, when the cup is filled with milk and it is not possible to mix it without splashing, start mixing with the pitcher, rotating it clockwise in vertical, circular movements.

You need to pour it thinly so that you have time to fill the cup, mix it about five times and then go to mixing by the pitcher. A common mistake is just in the thickness of the head. Many people pour a thick stream at the very beginning, because the cup fills up very quickly and the background is likely to turn out to be far from uniform. At the same time, an excessively thin and intermittent trickle that will splash into the drink will create a lot of problems for you in the form of excessive bubbling. The task is to pour as thinly as possible, but so that the jet is controlled.

Is it hard to pour and stir at the same time? Yes and no. You can check whether you are ready in this way. Try swirling the espresso around in your cup without visual control. If your movements are sharpened and you can easily control the cup without looking at it, you will most likely be able to do a simultaneous infusion with stirring.

By the way, the wider the cup is to the bottom and narrower to the top, the easier it is to stir the drink. Yes, it is almost impossible to draw normal latte art in such cups. But it is easier to stir, as the drink does not spill over the edges. In these cups, you can practice spinning. 

This will often be easier to do than in a suitable cup with a wide shape at the top. The same trick can be done with a to-go cup. Their shape also allows you to hone the skill of rotation, so if you work in this format, try to always rotate and pour at the same time in cups with you. The chance of pouring a drink in this form is much lower and you will quickly get used to the rotational movement.

Pour only in the middle of the cup. If we pour it somewhere in the wall, the trickle will beat in waves against the milk and there will be extra bubbles.

Pay attention to the height of the infusion. Do not pour too high, the milk will flop and create the same bubbles for you. Too low is also a mistake, as the milk will fall together with the foam on the surface and create streaks and drops for you. The optimal height is about 10-15 centimeters from the cup.

Try to narrow the range of motion as you mix until you stop completely. The cup is constantly filling up and it will get harder and harder to mix it with each passing second. The very first movements must be strong in order to have time to bring the drink to uniformity. And then, as you fill up, reduce the amplitude. 

Stirring by the pitcher

‍The next point is mixing by the pitcher. It is important to keep a thin stream. If the jet is strong, it will be more likely that the background will deteriorate. This is because a large amount of milk rests on the bottom and comes back to the surface. Also control the mixing speed. The faster you stir, the longer the milk retains its elasticity. At the same time, slowly interfering with the pitcher, the trickle is not so difficult to control. And as soon as the barista starts to speed up, it starts to fluctuate from small to large. How can I avoid this?

Everything is extremely simple. Do not rotate the pitcher in a horizontal plane, but in a vertical one. I've already talked about this before and here's what it's for. No matter how fast you move the pitcher by spinning it vertically, your milk will keep the same position and will not spill. If you twist it horizontally, splashing can not be avoided.

What are the nuances here? First, don't climb the walls, it's dangerous. The milk will create a lot of bubbles, and it's easy to miss, and there's a chance that the milk will hit the wall on one side and come out in a spot on the other side. Second, try not to aim at the bottom of the cup. This also causes spots and blurring of the drawing. Keep exactly in the center of the surface, move with a good amplitude, without climbing on the walls. The larger the amplitude, the better the elasticity of the milk will be. This also applies to the surface of the drink. The more elastic the surface where we put the drawing, the better it will fit.

Depending on the amount of foam in the cup, adjust the correct height. The less foam you have after whipping (for example, you whipped on a flat white), the lower you need to keep the pitcher to the cup. The height varies from 5 to 15 centimeters. If you have more foam and you pour low, you will have grooves of milk in the background. in this case, you should keep the pitcher slightly higher and pour it in from a height so that less streaks are created.

Stir until the first infusion.

‍Fill and stir the cup until the edge of the cup and the liquid are aligned at an angle of 30-45 degrees. 

This amount of liquid for latte art is quite enough. Then start drawing. If you performed all the steps perfectly, without any problems, then you will get an excellent and uniform background, without streaks, which has retained the proper elasticity. If we take a break before drawing, the background freezes, the foam begins to peel off and the drawing will not work, it will not be laid out on the surface.

Finally, I will say this. Stir and fill the cup in one direction. If the milk in the cup moves clockwise and you pour it in counterclockwise, the cup will collapse during the transition from stirring to drawing. A bunch of bubbles will form and the background, unfortunately, will become unsuitable for drawing. If you do everything in one direction , the background movement will be smooth and complementary.

‍