The atmosphere of the Chinese New Year is getting stronger day by day, and all walks of life are celebrating the Year of the Dragon in their own way. For example, in the cafes in the city, I heard that many of them have long queues hanging in the store, which is festive. And Pincoffe posted a video of a dragon year latte art in a book.
Speaking of Coffee Café, it opened in January 2010, so some people define this time as "the first year of independent cafes in Hangzhou". In addition, the managers of the first generation of Internet celebrity cafes in Hangzhou, several of them came out of Pincaoke, and some peers once called them "the Whampoa Military Academy of Hangzhou's coffee industry".
Pincafe is located in the Southern Song Dynasty Royal Street, a bit like a street café in a European city, that is, on the corner of the street, there are big glass windows, which is very suitable for sitting by the window and facing people in a daze, and people who pass by will never miss it.
The seats on the first floor are concentrated in front of the window, and the eyes are full of flowers and handicrafts.
The second floor is more private, with a lot of books, more like a reading room.
The afternoon sun shines into the café, and I sit and don't want to move.
At a time when cafes are changing hands frequently, a store that can hold on for so long, everyone thinks that they must have a "treasure of the town". In my eyes, the first treasure is, of course, Barista Billy, who has been here for ten years, is a well-known celebrity in Hangzhou, and his apprentices have won many awards.
The second treasure is Billy's dog, who accompanies him to work every day and has his own fixed "workstation" in the café. Normally he lies quietly on his stomach, but when he sees a pleasant guest (I guess), he raises his paw to say hello.
The third treasure is the coffee machine in the store, La Marzocco's high-end machine Modbar, it is not an ordinary coffee machine, it should be regarded as a system, composed of three modules: espresso module, steam module, and hand pour-over module, breaking through the concept of a large and complete traditional espresso machine, and the three modules can be freely matched and combined. For a long time, Pinfroke was the only café in Hangzhou with a Modbar system, and now there are only about three in Hangzhou.
Billy has been playing Zodiac Latte Art since the Year of the Tiger, but he told me that this tiger face is not pure latte art, but a combination of latte art and carved art.
To briefly popularize science, the latte art of coffee is to pour milk with milk foam into the espresso to mix the two foams to form a unique pattern, and the carving is to use the coffee latte needle to use the excess milk foam to outline a more delicate pattern on the surface of the coffee - the popular Song-style tea ordering process some time ago is similar to this carving. In terms of difficulty, latte art is definitely higher than carving, latte art is made by milk in one go, and there are certain requirements for coffee beans, in many cases, beans with good taste are not necessarily suitable for latte art.
During the Spring Festival last year, Billy randomly pulled several rabbit patterns in the store, and this time he showed us one of his favorites, which was a round rabbit shaped into a "Fu" shape.
This year, he started relatively early, and a few days ago he had already published a video of the Year of the Dragon latte art in a book, and this version was filmed by us.
In addition, he also painted a flying dragon with carvings, which should be more freehand and meticulous in brushstrokes. I watched for a while, and sighed slightly: I think back then, latte art was also popular in Hangzhou, with the opening of more and more independent cafes, good baristas are in short supply, or consumers' requirements for coffee itself are getting higher and higher, so now everyone is fighting for beans. Looking back, the barista who can pull out beautiful flowers is like a stunt, at least if you don't have some art skills, you can't draw a beautiful pattern!