I love my coffee, done right
Posted: June 6th, 2009 | Author: Alex Nako | 3 Comments »
I ran into this image the other day (by Lokesh Dhakar). Apart from revealing my other passion – design –, it’s a spot on representation of something that looks simple has actually a lot of craft and science behind. Art of coffee has been around for a long time but only recently it has received a place in the spotlight. That being probably the result of one of the trendiest thing to do in any corner of the world: coffee shops.
The barista, word coming from the italian ‘barman’ (and, to no surprise, currently registered as Starbucks brand), is the craftsman of such art. Once a year, baristas from across the globe get together to compete for precision, and creativity of course. The World Barista Championship aims to “truly helping to elevate coffee-making standards around the world”. Apparently it is also broadcasted over the web, the next date is not set yet, but I’ll try to put that in my calendar as soon as it’s out. I was quite happy to read this year’s champion comes from the UK: Gwilym Davies. In the Guardian article he describes the recipe of his signature coffee:
“It had butter, chocolate, orange peel, muscovado syrup and cinammon, which were all heated in one pan and then poured over the espresso with a little bit of milk on top. I want my customers to get to that level of enjoyment.”
Amazing.
Hey there, thanks for the link to Lokesh Dhakar’s original post.
I left a comment there, will copy it here incase it’s of any interest, though I’m going to correct the typos I noticed after pressing Submit there!
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Hey, great and clever diagrams, very handy.
Forgive me if these comments have already been made, I haven’t read through the long list of previous comments – I got part way down but didn’t go the whole way!
Couple of points. Your pronunciation guide for Espresso Macchiato does’nt seem quite right. You have macchiatio as “mock-e-ah-toe” but that first syllable has a vowel more like cat than dog.
Likewise, I would represent the first syllable of panna in Espresso con Panna to rhyme with “caf” rather than your “pawn” rendering.
Secondly, the reason for the confusion about the meaning of macchiato stems from the following. Macchiato translates as “stain” (or “mark”, as someone above said). A Caffé Macchiato means an espresso with a stain of milk, i.e. just a tiny smidgen of milk. A Latte Macchiato is the opposite – a tall glass of hot milk with a stain of coffee. It’s even weaker than a regular caffé latte and usually only ordered in the morning, in Italy.
The difficulty is that, in English speaking countries, we have shorted Caffé Latte to Latte (leading to occasional confusion when tourists to more remote areas of Italy try to order a milky coffee only to be given a glass of hot milk) and one often sees just the word Macchatio on a coffee menu with no indication whether it’s a Caffé Macchiato or a Latte Macchiato!
You’d think from all this that I’m a huge coffee drinker and expert – I am neither, prefering, as it happens, tea! But I spent some time in Italy with a friend of mine (also English but who moved there decades ago and is now a real local). Her friends took the time to explain the many different coffees properly and I was then, over time, able to see how these were translated/ represented by coffee houses around the world!
I am a true coffee lover and this is where I go for a ‘proper coffee’ complete with magnificent latte art!
Sadliers Coffee Lounge. They are 2008 National Independent winner – not bad for a small coffee lounge.
Annoyingly, it’s difficult to get a decent coffee unless I go here. http://www.beverageserviceassociation.com/bev-e-2008.asp
I’ve come across your very informative image before and it’s very useful.
A great piece of design & informative (have left comment to say as much with author)
I am also going to have a go at replicating the UK Champion’s winning cup…muscavado, orange…wow!