Starbucks Korea is pushing to launch in Korea a unique café latte made from clarified milk. The drink was developed by a barista who represents Korea and won the 'Best Signature Beverage' award at Starbucks' Asia Pacific regional competition.
Starbucks Korea said on the 27th that Coffee Ambassador Kim Do-hyeong became the first winner of this category at the 'Starbucks Asia Pacific Barista Championship,' held in Manila, the Philippines, from September 30 to October 2 (local time). In this year's tenth-anniversary competition, 25 Starbucks employees selected from 13 countries took part. Participants competed on skills such as coffee extraction, latte art and creating original drinks.
The winning entry is a drink using the 'milk clarification' technique. It uses the property of milk protein to curdle to filter out only the clear liquid. The company explained that the milk is refined three times to keep its flavor while making the taste clean, and is then aged at a low temperature to enhance the sweetness.
For the espresso beans, Kim used the 'Starlight Blend,' released last year in Korea only. The beans are characterized by a flavor reminiscent of the freshness of hallabong and the sweetness of strawberry. The extracted espresso was rapidly cooled to 20 degrees or below and then aerated to finish as a soft crema foam.
The theme of the drink is 'human connection,' meaning that people are connected to one another through coffee. During the demonstration, Kim had the judges take part directly in refining the milk. By having them watch together as the cloudy milk turned transparent, he expressed the message of connecting with customers.
Kim won the domestic 'Coffee Ambassador Cup' last year. Since then, he has served as a representative of about 24,000 Starbucks employees in Korea, introducing coffee culture. "A Starbucks barista is someone who goes beyond making coffee and shares stories and culture through coffee," he said. "It is even more meaningful that the signature drink I developed around the theme of connecting with customers did well in this competition."
Starbucks Korea plans to offer the drink to customers in Korea as well, but did not disclose the launch date or price. The company is also providing coffee-making and service training at each store, centered on the 'Coffee Excellence Center (CEC),' an organization for training coffee experts that it set up last year.