How a barista showed me an AI trick for latte art

Last Tuesday I was at a coffee shop in Austin, this place called Flattrack, and the barista was pulling these amazing latte designs. I asked her how she got the foam so perfect every time, and she laughed and said she uses a tiny AI tool on her phone to analyze milk temperature before pouring. She showed me this app that beeps at exactly 150 degrees, which is apparently the sweet spot for microfoam. I tried it at home with my cheap espresso machine and my patterns went from blobs to actual leaves in three tries. Has anyone else found a practical AI tool for something random like cooking or coffee?

3 comments

3 Comments

alicesingh1mo ago

Tried an AI salt thermometer for grilling and it saved my burgers from being hockey pucks.

riley_west19d ago

Pretty soon our grills will be smarter than we are.

-1

ryanh561mo ago

Dude yes that milk temp thing is huge. I actually ruined like 30 lattes before I found out about the 150 degree rule by accident just guessing by feel. The cheap thermometer I had was way off and my foam kept separating. Once I got a little digital one with a probe it was night and day difference for the texture. Now I can actually do a decent rosetta instead of a brown blob.