A Fancy Milk Frother That Will Instantly Upgrade Their Morning Coffee
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If the person you’re gift shopping for is a truecoffee nerd, they may already have anespresso setupthat they don’t need — or quite frankly want — anyone else touching.
For the rest of us who enjoy a caffeinated beverage or three every day, but aren’t so exacting, amilk frothermakes an excellent gift. (And yes, I’m talking about forthose who drink teatoo.)
Of course, using one will never allow you to re-create theexacttexture of microfoam that is achieved by the high-pressure steam wand that comes with a proper espresso machine, and the expertise of angling and moving the jug just so. But as long as you know that going in, the delight factor of this little machine is high — and the Nespresso in particular is the best one I’ve tried.
Let me back up for a second, though. There are two types of milk frothers: stick and pitcher. The former is nice because it is small and thin, can be easily stored in a kitchen drawer, and does not need to be plugged in. This kind doesn’t actually heat milk, though, so you have to do that separately. It is also generally much cheaper. Something about it doesn’t feelquiteas gift-worthy (though if you know they’d like this kind better, I recommend theSubminimal Nanofoamer).
With the pitcher style, you pour the milk in, and it has the ability to heat up the milk as it foams (though there is almost always a cold setting for iced drinks, too).
Among pitcher-style frothers, the Nespresso is compact and pretty nice-looking, two nonnegotiables for me when it comes to appliances that spend a lot of time, if not all the time, on the counter. I usually use almond milk — perhaps the trickiest type to froth well, even at a professional coffee shop — and I find that the Nespresso does a good job. And it works even more beautifully with whole milk and oat milk.
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It has four settings: hot dense foam, hot airier foam, cold foam, and heated milk with no foam at all. The dense foam produces a luscious mouthfeel with a sizable pile of foam on top, as close to what you get with a steam wand as I’ve found, especially if you give it a little stir. (Oftentimes with other models I’ve tried, the bubbles formed are quite large, akin to suds.) The airer preparation allows the majority of milk to disperse.
The heated-milk setting is good for two unexpected reasons. The first: As someone who doesn’t have a microwave, I can use it to rewarm a cup of coffee I’ve let sit out for too long, a real win for chilly winter mornings. And second: You can use it to make hot chocolate too.
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