Making a Xanthan Gum Latte

I don’t always drink lattes, but when I do, it’s a Xanthan Gum Latte.

I’m not normally a latte sort of guy, but when I was at the Boing Boing Weekend of Wonder, I was lucky enough to be treated to a xanthan gum latte made by John Edgar Park. I really liked how it had turned out, and it looked pretty easy to do, so I bought a pound of xanthan gum (a pound is a whole lot of xanthan gum, by the way) and an immersion blender and got to blending.

Like any recipe, there’s always a little experimentation that happens before it’s perfected, and that’s certainly the case here. On my  first batch I added way too much xanthan gum and the brew was a little bitter. The recommended dose of xanthan gum is 0.1%, which for my 370 or so grams of brewed coffee, should be 0.37 grams. I added a whole teaspoon, which is about four grams — more than ten times the recommended dose (hey, it looked small).

So I dialed the dosage down for the second batch and it came out perfect — smooth and creamy and delicious.

Now I have a big container of xanthan gum in my refrigerator. I don’t make lattes that often, so it’s sure to last for some time.