MANILA, Philippines — Latte art is no longer a trend; it has become the norm, award-winning Filipino baristas recently told Philstar.com in an interview.
“In Australia, latte is not latte without art,” said Rafael Miguel Bautista, Starbucks Asia Pacific Barista champion and Philippine coffee ambassador, during the recent launch of the Reserve store in Powerplant Mall.
He recalled that latte art began in 2010 – with a simple dot design. From there, baristas began experimenting and came up with different designs.
Espresso Macchiato with simple dot latte design. Photo release
“It’s not a skill you can perfect over night,” coffee ambassador and senior learning specialist Third Villaflor said. “It takes a lot of milk, espresso and practice!”
For those who want to make decent latte art for business or as a hobby, here are Bautista and Villaflor’s tips.
1. Prepare to spill lots of milk and espresso.
2. Use different coffee beans to discover varying experiences or notes.
Asia Pacific coffee is among the heavyweights of the world.
3. Make sure the milk has no bubbles and it is in the right temperature and frothiness or the art gets ruined.
4. Good-quality foam keeps the design intact.
5. Start with a heart because it is the easiest art to form.
Mocha drink with heart latte art. Starbucks Reserve/Released
6. Once you have perfected the heart, you can now try doing a rosetta.
From the rosetta, you can explore making other figures such as swans, tulips and waving hearts. Baristas’ signature shape is zebra.
Rippling hearts latte art. Photo release
7. Practice every day until you develop muscle memory.
In the onset, you can use special tools like forks in shaping, but once you have developed muscle memory, you can do free-pour latte art, which is done by simply pouring and swirling the latte into a cup.
Beverage innovations
Recently, Starbucks has combined ice cream with frappe into new concoctions such as Midnight Mocha Frappuccino, a fusion of rich, bittersweet black cocoa powder, coffee and java chip with whipped cream and topping, dusted dusted with black cocoa powder. Another new flavor is Tea-ramisu Frappuccino, a blend of creamy cheesecake milk with thick Japanese matcha, topped with whipped cream and green tea cookie crumble.
In celebration of Serenitea’s 10th anniversary, the tea shop teamed up with Carmen’s Best Ice Cream to make innovations like Okinawa Milk Tea Ice Cream and Hokkaido Milk Tea Ice Cream.
New drink innovations. Serenitea/Released
Mapping the future of Filipino coffee
If government, coffee farmers, foundations and private businesses would come together, the Philippine coffee will once again grace the world’s coffee spotlight, said Harris Conlin, chief executive officer of Conlin Coffee World Inc. and Foundation for Sustainable Coffee Excellence.
“Our main future plan is to make the Filipino coffee be recognized in the world. In the next few years, by doing what we are doing, by not changing course, it’s totally doable. As one of the leading coffee roasters in the Philippines, one of our goals is to really support Filipino coffee and bring back the country in coffee spotlight,” Conlin said.
Conlin, however, said the country is still pretty far for achieving its goal.
“There comes a time that La Trinidad farmers don’t want to plant coffee anymore. Now they got back the interest of the farmers to plant coffee with programs in place, it’s started to prove to them that they have a nice living in planting coffee.”
In the coffee industry, there is a scoring system. Anything over the score of 90 is special. Conlin said Filipino coffee scores under 80.
“We’re still pretty far. A little bit more to go. The farmers are realizing that they can so much more, if they picked the ripest coffee and process it in a good equipment, it will translate in the score of over 80 and eventually 90.”
Philippine Seven Corporation (PSC), local licensee of convenience store chain 7-Eleven, revealed the need to bring awareness about what is happening to the local coffee industry. Previously, the Philippines was part of the top coffee exporters of the world, but over the years, the industry experienced a decline, causing the country to import coffee instead.
Every year, Filipinos consume 65,000 metric tons of coffee, but only 30,000 metric tons are supplied locally – and demand is still projected to rise. Currently, only 200,000 Filipinos are in the local coffee industry, where problems like low buying price, outdated production practices, unproductive coffee trees, diversification into other crops, and a lack of post-harvest production and processing facilities continue to hinder profitability.
Recently, 7-Eleven launched a program to help local farmers of La Trinidad, Benguet. For every 12 oz bought, 50 centavos goes to local farmers through PSC’s partnership with the Foundation for Sustainable Coffee Excellence.
“This will encourage our coffee farmers to produce more coffee in the municipality of La Trinidad,” Mayor Romeo Salda told Philstar.com.
“We will purchase equipment for the coffee farmers to use. Dati manual lang. Binabayo lang namin. Ngayon, makakabili na kami ng pulper. Ito ang una naming pulper. Kaya malaking tulong sa amin.”
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