The history of latte art spans forty years. The story starts in 1901 when Luigi Bezzera fitted a steam wand to his prototype espresso machine. Five years later, Desiderato Pavoni bought that patent and sold the first commercial espresso machine. The image in the cup took another eighty years to appear.
Latte art has become a common sight in Australian cafés, and the designs on offer now run from a plain heart to animals with detailed faces. That range came from a specific sequence of people, videos, competitions, and equipment. Each stage added something the one before it could not supply.
Seattle in the Late 1980s
Most accounts of the history of latte art point to Seattle in the late 1980s, and to one coffee shop in particular. In 1988 David Schomer and Geneva Sullivan founded Espresso Vivace, which is credited with popularising latte art in the United States.
The first designs came from Schomer’s staff. In 1988 Sarah Hunting poured against the back of the cup and got a bee shape. In 1989 Lisa Persons poured a clean heart, and Schomer developed the rosetta afterwards. The manager of the cart had grown up in northern Italy and recognised the fern shape, telling Schomer that it was called a rosetta in the hills above Turin. That conversation gives the design both its name and its claimed origin.
The rosetta took the longest to pin down. Accounts credit a photograph of a cappuccino from an Italian café called Caffe Mateki, along with about six months of practice before Schomer could repeat the design on demand. Published dates for the finished rosetta range from 1992 to the mid 1990s, and Schomer’s own telling places it after the 1989 heart without fixing a year to it.
Schomer then trained hundreds of baristas at Vivace, self-published a book on espresso technique in 1994, and recorded an instructional video called Caffe Latte Art in 1995. He ran a class under the same name, and students took the method back to cafés across the country.
Italy in the 1990s
Italy had its own pioneer working in parallel. Luigi Lupi is an Italian barista who developed his own style of cappuccino decoration and made a series of instructional videos for other baristas in the late 1990s. He found Schomer’s videos online, and the two exchanged material to sharpen their own technique. The English term latte art stuck across the coffee world, and the Italian name for decorated cappuccino faded.
Lupi won the Italian barista championship in 2002 and spent the early 2000s teaching in coffee schools, which is how latte art spread through different countries as a taught skill with a method behind it. Schomer judged contests in the same period and watched the standard jump. Work coming out of Taiwan, Japan, and Korea impressed him, and cafés across Scandinavia, Australia, and New Zealand were pouring at a similar level.
The First World Latte Art Championship, 2005
Enough national talent existed by then to support a world event. The Specialty Coffee Association of Europe held the first World Latte Art Championship in Athens in March 2005, and the history of latte art gained an annual record of who poured best in a given year. Australia has a strong record in the event, with the title going to Scott Callaghan in 2006, Jack Hanna in 2007, Con Haralambopoulos in 2008, and Caleb Cha in 2015.
The format rewards precision under time pressure. National latte art championships feed the world final, and each country’s champion then makes six drinks in eleven minutes on the main stage, two matching pairs of free-pour lattes and two matching designer drinks where tools and etching are allowed.
Judges score visual attributes, creativity, contrast, how closely the two cups in each pair match, and overall performance, and the top six go through to a final round. A preliminary Art Bar puts competitors in front of the public, who vote on a design of the barista’s choosing. Symmetrical pairs are the hardest part of the discipline, because a competitor has to make an exact repeat of an intricate design under a clock.
In the recent history of latte art championships, Agnieszka Rojewska competed in the final of the 2018 championship and says that cat and bear designs counted as creative when she started, while birds, koalas, and giraffes now appear. Manuela Fensore won the 2019 championship in Berlin with a parrot, scoring 449 points.
Instagram and Photographed Coffees
The rise of social media added an audience to the history of latte art that no café could seat. Instagram launched in October 2010 and made a photograph of a drink as easy to circulate as a text message. Photogenic coffee posts on Instagram rose by 4,500% between 2015 and 2017, and the analysts behind that count pointed to lattes as the drink driving the volume, because the white top of a latte gives a canvas for #latteart.
Cafés responded because the pictures brought people through the door. Agnieszka Rojewska describes latte art as a way to attract customers, with people coming back to photograph a cup before they know much about the coffee inside it.
Automatic Texturing and Printed Designs
The newest chapter in the history of latte art involves machines that texture the milk and machines that print the image. Automatic milk steamers heat and aerate milk to a preset temperature and foam level. High-volume cafés and chains use these devices to keep texture consistent across sites and across staff who have different levels of practice.
Super-automatic machines take this further by drawing milk through internal lines and dispensing it straight into the cup. Foam from those systems tends to form a distinct layer across the top of the drink, and the machine dispenses it without a pitcher in anyone’s hand.
In 2015, Steam CC launched a commercial coffee printer that combines inkjet and 3D printing mechanics to apply concentrated coffee extract to the surface of the foam, finishing an image in under ten seconds. Photographs, logos, and birthday messages became available to any café willing to pay a subscription.
Learn the Basics of Latte Art
Every design in the history of latte art comes down to two things, milk with the right texture and a pour you control. The basics of latte art stay the same on a home machine and on a busy café bar. Our Latte Art Course gives you the chance to perfect microfoam and practice pouring to perfect designs of your own. If you have never worked behind a machine before, our Barista Course covers the basics of coffee making, while our Advanced Barista and Latte Art Bundle combines both. Enrol in coffee making training with us and take that skill into your own kitchen, café, or next shift.
FAQs
What is a Latte Art Throwdown?
A latte art throwdown is an informal knockout contest where two baristas pour at the same time and a judge or the crowd picks the winner of each round. Throwdowns run outside the sanctioned championship circuit, so a result has no bearing on national qualification or the history of latte art championships.
Can You Pour Latte Art With Plant-Based Milk?
Yes. Some versions of oat and soy milk add fat and stabilisers so the foam keeps its structure against the heat and acidity of espresso so it can hold the creamy crema needed for latte art designs.
Can the Shape of Your Cup Change What You Can Pour?
Yes. A wide top and a rounded bottom let the milk fold into the espresso and spread across the surface, which gives a rosetta or a tulip room to open out. Cups that taper towards the rim squeeze a design smaller as they fill, whatever your technique.
