Meet Dalal! Self-taught latte artist and home barista

We have noticed an exponential growth in the number of coffee lovers learning how to recreate their favorite beverages at home. It is rare to scroll through Instagram without encountering an aesthetic latte art video or photo from a home barista. A prominent and talented participant in this trend is Dalal from @dalal.coffee.11 on Instagram.

Brewed by Hand had the joy of chatting with Dalal and learning more about how she began her journey in latte art and hearing her tips for latte art!

Tell us a little bit about yourself!

My name is Dalal and currently I am a PhD student in computer science

How did your interest in coffee begin? What were your motivators and how did you learn latte art?

Coffee has been always my favourite beverage, but I have always enjoyed black coffee more than any milk-based coffee. Since I started my PhD in 2019, I started drinking more coffee while studying especially when I study at home, which led me to want to choose good quality coffee beans to brew at home using my Moka pot.

I was interested to make better coffee at home, so I joined barista classes to learn more about coffee and brewing methods. As latte art is always part of the class, I found myself interested in milk steaming and how it would taste good if it was well steamed and mixed with good, extracted espresso. I started to quite enjoy pouring latte art every time I joined a barista class and I started to notice the difference in taste in milk-based coffee.

When COVID happened, I was doing my PhD alone at home and I received my Sage barista touch coffee machine as a gift from my family to motivate me keep studying and make good coffee while I am studying at home. Since then, the latte art became my day-to-day challenge. While the world felt strange, I tried to keep my focus on my studies beside improving my latte art skills. It wasn’t easy time but making latte art made time at home more enjoyable and it was nice to have “kinda” good looking coffee on my desk while I am working on my PhD.

What prompted you to start making content about coffee and how do you plan to continue your coffee journey?

I have always posted my latte art attempts on my personal social media accounts to family and friends, and they seemed engaged and enjoyed my coffee posts, even the failed ones, as they kept motivating me to try again. Everyone was encouraging me to create another account and post more latte art. As I am a bit shy person, I wasn’t sure if it was something I would like to do, but I did it anyway! I found myself enjoying it, especially since I met incredible fellow coffee lovers who are willing to share tips, motivate me when I fail and help me improve my latte art.

I would like to go forward by growing my account and try to be more educational by posting more tips of how to make better coffee at home.

Do you have any tips for someone starting out in coffee or latte art? What are your favourite pieces of equipment in your kit?

I would tell someone who is starting in coffee is to learn more about good quality coffee beans, where they come from and how they are processed, and enjoy the process of learning how to brew a good cup of coffee at home! By that I mean, enjoy learning how to extract a good tasting coffee despite the method you are using! Whether you have a good espresso machine at home or you are only using simple method such as French press or Moka pot!

And for someone who is starting in latte art, the tip I would give is to be patient! As good things always take time, accept the failures and try again later, and coffee can still taste good even if the latte art isn’t that good, enjoy your cup for today and a day will come where you pour beautiful latte art flawlessly, just keep trying!

My favourite pieces of kit are definitely my Sage Barista Touch, my Felicita Incline Scale, and my beautiful collection of Loveramics cups!