Latte Art training without milk

Back in 2018, I had just started working as a barista at the weekend market in the little town I grew up.
It didn’t took me long to get fascinated by latte art and I was eager to improve and become better at it.

But this was still at a time, you had to use real milk for latte art training. To my luck, the company I worked for, had facilities I was allowed to use for training latte art. They were even kind enough to provided coffee for my practise. But of course, I needed milk as well. I can vividly remember walking to the supermarket and buying a trolley full with milk, only for this purpose.

The first year I was doing latte art was kinda weird. Although I was really passionate about Latte Art, I hardly ever mentioned it to people.

Only because I feared the one question I always got asked.
What do you do with all that coffee and milk?
They were always in shock, when I told them I just pour it down the sink. This made me painfully aware of the immense food wast that was my hobby.

About one and a half year into my journey with Latte Art, Barista Carls Blend was invented.

As I was scrolling through my Instagram, I saw it for the very first time. Someone used cold water and added these drops, but used it as if it would have been milk. And it even worked! I was just blown away. I thought I have to give this a try. So I ordered myself some BCB.
My very first pour with BCB was a Pegasus. It was really weird at first, because you could see the foam split. It seemed like you’d pour some water with a little foam in the coffee, but it worked.

Only recently, Carl (the founder and inventor of Barista Carl’s Blend) told me I was among the very first who ordered BCB. I am kinda proud on this.

A bit more than two years have passed since my very first pour with BCB. Since then, the formula of BCB has been improved massively. And so has my trainings routine. These days I use BCB for about 80% of my trainings.

This saves me weekly about 60l of milk!

In a way I’m really happy to have implemented BCB into my training this way. But as long as I want to participate in latte art competitions, I will always have to use some milk for my trainings.
Because in competitions, you have to use real milk. The closer I get to the competition day, the more milk I use in my training. Since I want to be prepared in the best way possible.

But I think the way latte art competitions are held, should change.

As we finally have an alternative for milk. Why don’t we implement it into the competition?

Well, this is only my honest opinion. And patience has never been my strength.

I guess we have to take one step at a time. The best I can do for now, is to raise awareness for this amazing product and hope as many latte artists and baristas switch their training routines to Barista Carl’s Blend and save a lot of milk.

Respectfully,

Dario