All About Coffee: Latte Art Demo

The program's goal was to create a cozy and educational event about coffee and love for libraries to coincide with February's National Latte Day and National Library Lovers Month. The learning outcomes were to increase patrons' knowledge of coffee's origins and brewing techniques by offering a live late art demonstration and providing a hands-on takeaway with DIY instant latte mix. The event was aimed at coffee lovers of all levels while reinforcing the library as a welcoming and community-centered space.

Planning began about four weeks in advance. One of our staff members is a former barista, so I utilized her expertise for planning. While it's important to note that homemade (library-made) lattes and art cannot rival commercial-grade equipment found in a coffee shop, we did make good lattes.

I created a coffee-themed book display for the month to garner interest and created a book list to share on our curated reading lists online. I gathered ingredients for the drink mix and reached out to a local coffee shop for some unroasted (green) beans to show our patrons. They provided these for free.

Two weeks out, I created the PowerPoint presentation and labels for the DIY drink mix. The staff member and I began testing latte art with our equipment. We used a small espresso machine with a steam wand and also an electric frother to compare.