Milk for coffee

The default in most specialty cafés: forgiving to steam, stable once textured, and the reference point the others are described against.

Foams to a larger volume than whole milk and holds it less well — more foam, less body.

Produces the most foam and the driest foam — the classic stiff cappuccino cap, and a difficult milk for latte art.

Ordinary dairy milk with the lactose already broken down — steams like the milk it was made from, and tastes noticeably sweeter.

The most widely used plant milk in specialty coffee, and the one where the difference between a barista formulation and an ordinary carton is starkest.

The original café plant milk: genuinely protein-rich, so it foams on its own terms — and the one most prone to visibly curdling against espresso.

Thin and low in protein, so foam is largely whatever the formulation provides — and it separates against espresso readily.

Fat-rich and protein-poor: it can be textured to something creamy, but the foam is fragile and the flavour is never in the background.

Produce hot milk with a fine, integrated foam that pours as one liquid rather than as foam sitting on milk.

Reduce the air in steamed milk to bubbles too small to see, so the foam and the liquid behave as one substance.

Stop steaming at a temperature that keeps the milk sweet and the texture fine, without needing to read a thermometer mid-drink.

Texture a plant milk without splitting it, and know when the carton rather than the technique is the problem.

Get a usable milk foam using an electric frother, a whisk, a French press or a jar, and know what each can and cannot produce.

Place textured milk on the surface of an espresso in a controlled pattern, by managing height, flow and cup angle.