How To Make A Bear

The Bear is a nice new animal variation for when you have learned how to pour them all. To make a bear, you will use the main skill you learned for making a tulip, which is the ever important milk foam push technique. If you have already mastered the puppy dog design, The Bear will be nothing more than a slight variation of what you already know. Get out your small pointed metal drawing tool. It's time to pour some fear into the hearts of latte lovers the world over. Let's make a bear!

As is the case with any latte art creation you pour, you will want to make sure you always steam your milk properly and use only fresh ground espresso. When you near the end of the milk steaming process, be sure you tilt your steam wand to the side of the steam pitcher to get the milk to swirl around the inside. This will give you a perfect microfoam for all of your latte art. Take a moment to tap the side of the pitcher with a spoon to get the foam to settle even more while popping all of the big bubbles. The less big bubbles you have, the more consistent your design will be.

We begin The Bear pour just as we would begin a tulip or puppy dog pour. You will want to create a appley heart kind of shape in the middle of your cup. To make this shape, just pour the milk foam into the middle of the cup while very slowly wiggling your wrist side to side. This causes the white milk foam to distribute itself evenly over the surface of the brown crema foam. Pour until there are about two centimeters of space between your shape and the edge of the cup. Make sure that you don't strike through the apple shape at the end of the pour because you aren't creating a heart. Simply lift up the steam pitcher and move on. By now, about half of the total surface area of the cup should have white milk foam, and it should all be contained in the appley shape in the middle of the cup.

Gently lift up your steam pitcher from the middle of the appley shape and bring it to the space just on top of where the stem would be if your apple shape had a stem. You will want to create another small appley shape where the steam should be, but you want to do it in such a way as to get the first appley shape to mold itself around the new shape. You have done this before in creating a tulip. You just need to push the pour into the top of the first appley shape as you pour it. The second shape you have created will become The Bear's beard.

If you have done the puppy dog design before, you will notice that The Bear and puppy dog shapes aren't all that different in the beginning. The only difference is that you have left more space around The Bear's head when creating The Bear. If you were pouring a puppy dog, the shape would have consumed the entire cup by now. The reason you are leaving more space around The Bear's head is because you will want to give your bear some ears.

The Bear's ears are basically done with a free pour technique. Simply move your steam pitcher above the two spaces on the top of The Bear's head where you would expect to place some round ears. Two small circle shapes will suffice. Be careful not to pour for too long, or you will have something that looks more like Mickey Mouse. Also, when you are finished, don't do any strike through motions. Just tilt the steam pitcher upwards, stop the pour, and move on.

At this point, your Bear shape should be complete, and the hard part will be over. You should see a big circle in the middle of the coffee cup with a small circle penetrating it on the bottom and two small circle shaped ears on the top left and right sides. The rest is up to your imagination and latte art drawing skills. Use your small pointed metal object to take some brown foam from the outside of The Bear to draw eyes, eyebrows, beard hair, and small swirls within the ears. Don't forget to wipe off your pointed metal object every time you dip it into the white foam. These little details will make your Bear stand out even more!

All in all, the bear is a fun and easy shape to make if you already know how to make a tulip and a puppy dog. Snap a photo of your bear and share it with us on our forums. We are excited to see what you can do with this one!

Learn more about making Latte Art in our Latte Art How To!