Extract Loves Barista Carl's Blend
Are you looking for ways to lower the carbon footprint of your coffee? Josh Clowes from Extract Coffee Roasters is here to share his experience using Barista Carl's Blend (BCB) for latte art training and practice.
Latte art is a beautiful skill that levels up the speciality coffee experience. But, as any barista will tell you, that elegant-looking swan requires a lot of practice to perfect.
All that practice requires a lot of time and a lot of milk, resulting in a lot of milk wastage, which isn't great for the environment.
Did you know that most of the carbon footprint of your cup of coffee is due to the milk used? For longer drinks, like a latte, milk accounts for about two-thirds of the carbon footprint of your drink. Crazy, right?
So, how do we achieve the highest standard of latte art while minimising our environmental impact?
Enter Barista Carl's Blend.
Our superstar Barista Trainer, Josh Clowes (also winner of UK Barista League!) has been testing out BCB in the roastery to see how effective this little bottle can be as a replacement for milk during latte art training and practice.
What is Barista Carl’s Blend (BCB)?
Barista Carl’s Blend (BCB) is a non-consumable, non-toxic oil designed to replicate steamed milk and used to practice latte art.
How do you use Barista Carl’s Blend (BCB)?
BCB comes in a handy bottle with a dropper lid, making it easy to dose.
Simply add a few drops to a milk pitcher filled with water and steam it like regular milk to create a realistic microfoam that allows you to practice all your latte art needs.
Is Barista Carl’s Blend (BCB) good for latte art?
After several months of testing, Josh found that BCB worked like a charm when pouring basic patterns like a heart or rosetta and even when practising more complex forms of latte art... all without using any milk!
Below are a couple of examples of practice drinks which Josh made using BCB showing a latte art seahorse and a latte art phoenix.
In terms of the quality of pour that you can achieve using BCB, I think that these really speak for themselves.
How much milk can you save using Barista Carl’s Blend (BCB)?
A typical latte art training session with 6 baristas over 2 hours can easily use 10-14 litres milk.
Because these are practice sessions (and you really can’t drink that much coffee) most of these drinks are wasted
One 30ml bottle of BCB can replace up to 20 litres of milk, enough for up to two latte art sessions.
In carbon footprint terms, that's 64kg CO2e or the equivalent of driving 304 km
This means you can save money and reduce your environmental impact while still perfecting your latte art skills. Win-win!
Following Josh’s test run, Extract Coffee Roasters is using BCB in all of our intermediate and latte art sessions at the Bristol Roastery with plans to expand to training sessions in London and Manchester too.
We're sticking with dairy and alt-milks for Foundation sessions for now, to give new baristas the chance to become familiar with the techniques needed to actual steam dairy and alt milks, before moving on to BCB in intermediate sessions for more complex pours.
So, that's another small step towards a lower environmental impact and making coffee better for people and planet.
Here’s to you Carl.
If you're a budding barista looking for some tips on latte art, check out our Foundation Latte Art Power Up online: How to Pour a Latte Art Heart.