PCA Latte Artist Level 1 and Level 2 Certificates

I am glad to share that I earned both the Latte Artist Level 1 and Latte Artist Level 2 certificates from PCA (Professional Coffee Athletics).

PCA has organized latte art and brewing competitions since 2015, with more than a hundred events held across Asia. The mission printed on the certificate sums up its approach: gather the strengths of coffee competitions around the world, improve on their weaknesses, and create a fair, public, and professional competition.

Level 1 lays the foundation: espresso standards and extraction, grinder calibration, milk texturing, and the principles behind how a free-pour pattern takes shape and what makes it look good in the cup. Everything starts from three classic shapes: the heart, the tulip, and the rosetta. PCA uses the same three as the base patterns in its latte art competitions, and nearly every advanced design is built from them.

Level 2 goes deeper into pouring technique and hand control, milk handling, and the grinder and espresso machine knowledge behind consistent results, including cleaning, maintenance, and troubleshooting. This is where my pours moved from single shapes to full compositions.

Latte Artist Level 1

Latte Artist Level 2

Cups from the course, starting with the three classic shapes and building up to a winged tulip, a tulip framed by leaves, a bouquet tied with a ribbon, a swan, and a playful animal face:

Working through both levels showed me how much of latte art is decided before the pour begins. Milk that is too thin lets the pattern bleed, milk that is too stiff will not flow, and the crema on the espresso is the canvas everything lands on. From there, a clean design comes down to the same few variables every time: the tilt of the cup, the height of the pitcher, and the rate of flow.

This builds on the SCA Barista Skills Intermediate course from earlier this summer, where latte art was one part of a wider bar workflow. With PCA, the pour itself became the focus. I look forward to bringing that attention to every cup I make, so that what someone sees first is as considered as what they taste.