a drink of thirds, you say?

July 12, 2007 – 7:21 pm

somehow, due to forces far beyond this blog, the new blogson was born a purist.



UPDATE: yes, well. pouring a capp into a volumetrically marked suckling bottle turns out to be a quasi-humbling, non-wasteful exercise. how humbling, you ask? it took us three pours to nail the ratios!

basically, this blog has always assumed that, notwithstanding our predications on the pure cappuccino form — and not unlike the standard practice at many triple-waveist commercial joints — we were probably shorting ourselves a wee bit of the drier foam in the interest of more pourable latte art. the normal routine, in other words, was likely producing a beverage a tad wetter than a true drink of thirds.

being about to explicitly photograph our use of ratios, however, we consciously steamed the milk with a bit more slurp … and ended up with something dry enough to sprout a cactus. we’re talking four full ounces of foam. “must be lemuel’s blasted vortex,” we mumbled, and dialed back a bit on the wand sloshage. annnnnnd, still dry. dry as last year’s bird nest.

the previous, normal, subconscious, do-it-behind-yer-back, latte-art-capable steaming routine, it turns out, left us with almost exactly two ounces of visible fluffy stuff to four ounces of combined spro and hot milk (after things had completely settled). gold stars for us! also: another round! also, we gleaned this bit of helpful advice, stamped to the side of the playtex ventaire: “remove mamilla to warm.” which is what this blog calls excellent advice.

join us this same time tomorrow for experiments in steamed milk passing through bottle nipples. what size passage do you suppose that would require?