Latte art: 3 cafes with amazing designs for your coffee | VIDEO

They can be swans, tulips, seahorses, snowmen or designs that allow creativity, a good espresso, milk at the exact temperature and a lot of practice. The latte art is increasingly innovative and gains greater acceptance in the coffee shops Peruvian.

Advantage toured three specialty coffee shops in Miraflores: Coffee Break, Puku Puku and Millimetricto learn about the latte art proposals of its baristas, as well as the various origin coffee options and extraction methods that they offer to the public.

Enter these three coffee shops, with their own concept and history, in this note:

1. Coffee Break

After 20 years of working for other companies related to the food and service industry, Patricia Cohaguila, creator of Pausa Café, returned to Peru from the United States with a fixed idea: to have her own business.

Pausa Café was born about 8 years ago on Arnaldo Márquez street in Jesús María, later it changed to a larger location on Horacio Urteaga in the same district. With a single bar from where the entire menu is prepared, in the style he learned to handle in New York, Cohaguila started with waffles, milkshakes and his irresistible loyalty desserts at Jesús María, but he realized that coffee was missing: “When I returned to Peru In 2011, there were hardly any cafeterias, there was a lot to do and it was good because it could break the market with something of quality”, recalls Cohaguila. “I saw the idea of ​​a specialty coffee shop as far away until I decided to buy a coffee roaster with a loan, but I didn’t know how to roast and I called a friend who taught me how to do it.”

Along the way, he met barista, roaster and taster Luis Sánchez Gonza who taught him how to roast coffee: “This is how I accidentally entered the coffee business. I stay with Cajamarca, the grain is different when you start roasting, simply by looking at the grains you know what origin it is from and that is how I fall in love with this grain, although I do not close doors to other origins”.

The free pour style

We found Luis Sánchez at the new Pausa Café location located in Miraflores, which is about to open, although it has already opened its doors and receives customers. The expert tells us that the secret to a good latte art is: “Having a good espresso with an optimal rest time to have a good creaminess and texture of the milk both in temperature and in the correct air intake. The maximum temperature to be able to have a creamy milk or to have a good latte art design is from 65° to, maximum, 75°, with that the sweetness bonds or the creaminess that you have created when texturing the milk are not broken. ”. In addition, Sánchez explains that to have better control of the pitcher and cup, it is better to stick your hands to your chest. “The style that I use is the free pour, which consists of making drawings with the jug. The other style that exists is etching, which is drawing with a steel stick,” he adds.

The true taste of Peruvian coffee

At Pausa Café you will find extraction methods such as chemex, V60, aeropress and, recently, they implemented origami: “These are the specialty cafeteria methods that we want to promote, so that they stop asking for espresso, cappuccino, Americano and take risks for other flavors. We want them to stop using sugar and feel the flavors, the work of the farmer who has undergone a whole process of extraction, selection and drying. I roast it with great care and I give it a medium roast so as not to feel the astringency. We care about having a good barista who makes good coffee because you can have the whole chain behind you, but if you don’t have a good barista you won’t be able to feel the true flavors.”

Pausa Café is also characterized by its good desserts such as waffles, tiramisu, chocolate cake, cheesecake and sandwiches prepared with the best ingredients.

More data:

• Location: Recavarren 181, Miraflores, soon to be inaugurated. Its first location is at Av. Horacio Urteaga 1226, Jesús María
• WhatsApp: 941942281
• Follow them on Instagram

2. Puku Puku

André Vega, senior barista at Puku Puku, tells us that the objective of this specialty coffee shop is to take Peruvian specialty coffee to levels beyond what one knows: “We want to bring micro-producers closer to the consumer. Puku Puku is in charge of collecting microlots –which are small farms of less than 10 quintals–, so the coffee is of much higher quality and requires more dedication. We take care of it from the process of the farm to the roasting, from the roasting to each of the Puku Puku bars. The barista highlights the best profile that he has and brings a good experience to the final consumer”, he details.

Puku Puku is a Quechua reference to a small bird that sings at dawn and its tender image fills the entire Narciso de la Colina location where we visited. Puku Puku offers coffee from different origins, at the bar they use coffee from Huánuco, but they constantly change to options from Junín, Ayacucho, Cusco, Puno, Cajamarca: “We are changing so that the consumer tries different origins and manages to see a difference between the coffee that drink”, highlights the barista.

The secret of a good employer

While Vega makes the design with milk on the coffee, he tells us that the most important thing for latte art is the espresso: “It is the base of all the drinks that we have on the menu. If we do not calibrate the espresso well, we will not have a good canvas to draw or a good contrast between the milk and the coffee. Also, it is important to find the correct temperature for the milk, texture it well, with patience, and keep in mind the pattern you are going to draw.”

In addition to its beautiful patterns and specialty coffees from various regions of Peru, Puku Puku has aeropress, Japanese siphon, chemex, French press, and V60 extraction methods on its menu. Its sweet and savory menu is not far behind, it offers options such as the rustic mix, the panini mix, an unmissable caprese sandwich and incredible desserts such as banana, carrot, lemon, pionono, cakes and redvelvet cake. It also has empanadas.

More data:

• Location: Puku Puku has 5 stores, one of which is in Arequipa. The place we visited is at Calle Narciso de la Colina 297, Miraflores.
• WhatsApp: 996 452 482
• Puku Puku is pet-friendly
• Online store: www.pukupuku.pe
• Follow them on Instagram:

3. Pinpoint Coffee

The specialty coffee shop, Millimetric, was born in 2017 as an espresso bar. Its manager, Jaco Benzaquen, a lover of coffee as well as cycling, partnered with José Rivera to expand the proposal and move to its current location in Alcanfores.

“Milimetric has always been related to cycling because I am a cyclist and in some way coffee is part of this culture, it is the social part of training. It has always been very present”, Benzaquen tells us, which explains the accessories that round off the concept of the cafeteria, such as bicycles hanging on the walls, hats and merchandising.

“The name of the cafeteria goes for a theme of precision, consistency, measurements, repetitions. In coffee you play with many factors such as water and temperature, they are variables that have to be controlled very precisely and documented to be able to repeat it”, says the expert roaster.

High quality coffees

This specialty coffee shop has very high quality coffees: “Our coffees have international standards that could easily be served in another country. The plugin is the whole cycling theme and the community around it. There is a coffee group that is already a cycling staff and supports the activities we do”.

Regarding the extraction methods, Benzaque tells us that they work with the Modbar brand: “They are coffee machines in which the extraction coffee filtering process can be automated. We use the kalita method which works best with that coffee maker. What they are going to find –beyond having a great variety of methods– is going to be a good variety and quality of coffees, with floral and fruit profiles, natural processes, washed. They have the possibility of trying 4 or 5 espresso coffees”, highlights Benzaque about some of the benefits of his place. In Millimetric a wide variety of coffee profiles is guaranteed, some of which are chosen to use with milk and others to filter.

Millimetric barista, Nando Siches, comments that the milk vaporization technique is extremely important and should not exceed 65°: “Also, you need a lot of practice, passion in the extraction and, most importantly, you have to have a lot of patience. In latte art, espresso intervenes a lot because it is the canvas of the pattern, you cannot generate good latte art if you do not have a good espresso extraction, the drink has to have a well-calibrated espresso and quality coffee”, says the expert barista who designed a swan and a tulip for Provecho.

In its food menu, Millimetric has bagels with cream cheese, olives, tomatoes with mozzarella, prosciutto and more options. Also, sweets like banana, carrot, lemon and blueberry cakes.

More data:

• Location: Alcanfores 215, Miraflores
• Store: https://milimetrica.coffee/
• Follow them on Instagram:

More and more Peruvian specialty coffee shops are promoting the consumption of Peruvian coffee and the various extraction methods, as well as coffee entertainment such as a cute latte art design. What other Peruvian coffee shops do you know with new and fun patterns?