Milk Quality

As a Barista, one thing we take for granted is the quality of our milk supply. It makes up a great portion of your daily latte, flat white, hot chocolate, or whatever else may tickle your fancy.

You may or may not notice, but every now and then milk has a season, where the quality, is pretty poor, and means that often we cant get that nice silky, glossy, smooth texture to the milk when we steam it on an espresso machine.

It used to be a mystery to me, and at times still is.. i would love to know more the scientific reasons as for why this happens. Its usually around when some farmers are starting to dry off the cows, or when they are using different feed etc. At the moment i am convinced its closer related to the later, of different feed, as alot of the country is faced with a sense of drought, and many farmers having to use alternate feeds due to no grass, or using winter feed.

Do you have any other explainations for this? have you noticed the texture of your latte being a bit different in the last few weeks?  maybe it varies from region to region too..

I would be interested to hear your thoughts/comments!

Coffeeeman