If You Think Milk Doesn’t Go With Coffee, Try Making a Latte Yourself and Get Back to Me (April 24, 2025)
The snobbery of people who look down on those who dare to add milk to their coffee or espresso. The coffee purists are still out there.
But first, some facts coming your way.
Despite the popular conception, a latte is not a milk-based drink. It is an espresso-based drink that has milk in it. If you think otherwise, you’re in the majority (and wrong), but consider this:
1. Why is it that when a latte fails, it’s usually, in my experience, because of a poor espresso extraction, and not because of the milk?
2. Why can’t perfectly steamed milk cover up the problem of a poor extraction? The milk is extremely important and can completely doom a latte – that is true, and believe me, I’ve experienced milk-doomed lattes over and over on my coffee travels. But I’ve never found a great latte with a disastrous or even a merely bad extraction.
For a latte, both the espresso and the milk are important and must work hand-in-hand. But I think the espresso is much more important than the milk.
Most cafes have a hard time making espresso-based drinks – just look at how many places receive poor scores in my rankings. Making a latte is a craft, part art, part science, part love, part bravery, part foolhardiness (for daring to make something so finicky).
What should we call people who want to experience a drink that requires the highest level of skill to make, who want to know the best that a coffee drink can be? I call them people of impeccable taste and distinction. You know it.
But here’s what will increase your respect for lattes and other espresso-based drinks, if you’re not there already: Make yourself a latte at home. Experience what’s it’s like to dial in – to find the precise grind size that yields the exact amount of espresso you want, from the exact amount of ground coffee beans you want, over a defined period of time. Then try steaming the milk to the perfect temperature and with the right texture (microfoam). Then try some latte art.
You may find the whole process drives you to therapy, if you’re not already there.
But you’ll end up with massive appreciation for how tough it is to make a great drink containing espresso. And you’ll realize the coffee-with-milk people deserve more respect for their discerning taste and desire to reach the highest of coffee heights. I hope to see you there.
