Bull Dog Coffee's Stuart Ross pouring latte art. Photo: Liz Clayton
(City Bites, October/November 2006)
by Liz Clayton
As serious espresso goes,
Toronto has long ranked behind the venerable coffee nations of Italy and
the Pacific Northwest. Even visits to famous cafes closer to home — like
the revered Intelligentsia in Chicago, or Ithaca, New York’s Gimme!
Coffee — only affirms the evidence that real espresso, beautifully
presented and properly pulled, does exist on this side of the Rockies.
Just not here.
But
during one cold grey morning in Leslieville it became resoundingly apparent
that great
Toronto espresso had finally arrived.
I had my first
inkling from the delicate white heart inscribed in the foam of my Mercury
Organic Espresso Bar latte — but the barista’s finishing touch
was only a prelude to the drink that’s sending droves of espresso
snobs scuttling east of Yonge Street.
That heart was latte art, the craft of pouring designs into the foam
of espresso-based beverages that’s crept slowly eastward from the caffeine-obsessed Pacific
Northwest only to emerge in two of Toronto’s finest cafes — Queen
East’s rock-and-roll styled Mercury, and at Bull
Dog Coffee, a bustling
storefront tucked away just southeast of Church and Carlton. For the owner-baristas
of these establishments, latte artwork is more than a flourish — it
requires the trained hand of someone who takes immense care in their
craft, and serves as a signifier of the quality and precision with
which your coffee
has been made.
“In order to achieve latte art, a perfect shot has to be pulled and the
milk has to be transformed into that perfect marshmallowy silky-smooth liquid,” said
Stuart Ross, who trained as a barista in Seattle and opened Bull Dog
Coffee in 2003, working on his trade until being crowned the Central
Region Canada Barista Champion of 2005.
The two most common latte designs you’ll see are the rosetta and heart,
which, like all latte art patterns, rely on perfectly textured milk at exactly
the right temperature, and careful pouring control. Some baristas enjoy practicing
fancy, inventive variations on the basic designs — multi-pronged rosettes,
a “fire breathing dragon,” and in Ross’ case, a design
he says resembles a bull dog. Others, though, see these more elaborate
designs, which can include toothpick etching to supplement a hand-poured
pattern,
as simply delaying delivery of the beverage to the customer.
“The key is to do the simple things well,” said Mercury owner Matthew
Taylor, himself a Bull Dog alum, who prefers a rosetta to a fire-breathing
dragon. “It’s kind of like constellations. The customer’s
not going to see a fire-breathing dragon unless you tell them that’s
what it is.”
But be they purists or dragon-seers, Toronto’s coffee-drinkers
are beginning to realize the difference in quality that a fastidiously
poured
latte represents.
“I've been trying to educate my customers that if they get
latte art on their drinks, then they know you they are getting the
best,” said
Ross.
Though Toronto’s coffee culture is still only in its most nascent
stages, Taylor agrees that educating the consumer is the best way to
grow a city
of connoisseurs.
“I think as a café owner, it’s sort of like a responsibility
to introduce people to it,” said Taylor about quality espresso — in
Mercury’s case, fair-trade, shade-grown organic beans roasted
by local roaster Dark City. “Everybody’s been Starbucksed.
It’s
about getting them away from the mundane and introducing them to an
amazing culture.”
For Toronto’s best baristas, latte art is part of a dedication
to coffee that goes well beyond production and into the realms of craft
and true artisanship.
“It’s the same thing as producing any work of art, you can work on an
assembly line and produce these mass pieces like the way Starbucks does it,” said
Taylor,
“There’s a point that you figure out that if you want to get any
further, if you want to do it real, there has to be a passion, there’s
a real artistry to it.”