Why and How to Make Lattes at Home: Easy Coffee Drink Recipes & More

Looking for some delicious yet easy coffee drinks to make at home and save money? We've got you! Here, we will give you a few of the best lattes and coffee drinks to brew up at home quickly and easily.

These are some of the simplest and tastiest coffees to create with easy-to-find ingredients from the comfort of your kitchen! Save time, save money, and sip on awesome. 

Why make coffee at home instead of buying it at a drive-through?

There are many great reasons to brew coffee at home instead of getting it from a corporate coffee chain or expensive kiosk. Here are just a few compelling reasons to make your own coffee drinks and lattes at home instead of paying to have a barista make them for you!

• You’ll Get Better Coffee Quality

For one thing, you can access better coffee when you brew at home. By ordering premium coffee online, like the fresh roasted small-batch Arabica coffee grounds sold at www.onegreatcoffee.com (shop here), you can unlock a myriad of new, delicious flavors, subtle nuances, and bold aromas. This allows you to enjoy a cup of pure awesome every time!

Not to mention, many small-batch and fair-trade coffee retailers source their coffee beans more responsibly than the corporate guys. You can drink coffee with a clear conscience knowing that you’re supporting the families of coffee farmers and small US-based businesses that care. 

• You Can Save Money on Your Coffee 

Additionally, making coffee at home can save you hundreds if upon hundreds of dollars a year- it all depends on what you spend on coffee daily or weekly. Many Americans spend on average $40 a week on coffee at a drive-thru or kiosk. Over the course of a year, that’s around $2000 spent annually on coffee.

In contrast, if you invest in a decent coffee or espresso machine, buy your own fresh high-end grounds from an online coffee retailer, and order quality syrups for coffee drinks, you’ll wind up spending only a fraction of that. A decent espresso machine generally costs around $200, and buying milk, weekly coffee grounds, plus syrups and ingredients over the course of a year, will run you around $200-500. So, including the initial investment, your expenditure rounds up to about $12 per week, saving you upwards of $1,100 annually. That's a sizeable chunk of change!

• Making Coffee at Home Means Custom Drink Perfection

Why settle for anything but the best? When you craft your favorite coffee beverages at home, you can make them to your exact specifications, without having to feel awkward asking the barista for extra toppings, custom tweaks, or flavor favors. Plus, you run less risk of the barista getting your name wrong or consuming unhealthy hidden ingredients.

You can make your coffee with whole milk, oat milk, almond milk, or coconut milk. Add high-quality flavors that you like in the quantities that you prefer! Plus, you can make keto-friendly coffee, low carb coffee, sugar-free drinks, and everything in between! You just need to stock up on the right ingredients and you will be all set. 

• Save Time and Conserve Resources by Making Coffee Drinks at Home

Finally, you will likely save time and resources by making your coffee beverages at home. Not only can you reuse the same coffee cup, but you won't have to wait in line at the drive-thru or make a pit stop on your way to work. Instead, you can have everything ready to go right in front of you! 

On average, it only takes 5 minutes to craft a homemade latte, this includes milk steaming time. That’s about 30 minutes a week making coffee at home total. Compare that to driving 5-10 minutes out of the way to a coffee shop, waiting in line for 5-10 minutes, and spending another 3-5 minutes getting out of the parking lot and back on the road. Add that up, and it takes at least an extra 20 minutes to get coffee from a coffee shop. This means making coffee at home is at least twice as fast as going to a coffee shop. 

The Best Easy Coffee Drinks to Make At Home 

Now, here are five of the best-tasting and easiest coffee drinks and lattes to craft from the comfort of home! 

1. Traditional Latte (Hot with Milk)

Making a traditional latte at home is actually very easy. Most lattes are made up of milk and espresso with some kind of sweetener and a topping. They are simple, straightforward, creamy, and delicious! Lattes are also very customizable and can be made with all kinds of different milks or sweeteners like brown sugar, simple syrups, chocolate syrup, white chocolate powder, or caramel.

How to Make a Hot Latte at Home

As long as you have an espresso maker, lattes are easy to make at home. Making your own iced or hot lattes takes about five minutes and you only need a few ingredients. Even if you don't have an espresso machine, you can still make lattes at home by brewing small quantities of extra-strong coffee in a Keurig or even a coffee pot.

Ingredients (General List)

• Espresso shots (espresso/finely ground dark roast coffee and water)
• Milk (whole, almond, soy, coconut, etc.)
• Flavoring Syrup (Torani makes simple syrups in essentially every flavor and is the brand preferred by many coffee kiosks)
• Toppings (Chocolate syrup, caramel, whipped cream, etc.)

Instructions

The goal with the latte is to warm up your milk, add espresso, and mix in the sweetener or flavoring ingredients of your choice. That's about it! 

For a hot latte, first, heat up your milk. You can steam your milk with an espresso machine or simply heat it up in the microwave or on the stove. It takes about 50 seconds to thoroughly heat one cup of milk in the microwave. A latte will usually be a ¼ ratio, meaning you need one part espresso to three parts milk. 

While your milk is heating, prepare your espresso shots or extra-strong coffee. Finally, add the amount of simple syrup you desire and stir. You can top off your latte with things like cinnamon, whipped cream, caramel syrup, Hershey’s syrup, or any other toppings you like.

2. Iced Latte, Iced Mochas, and Iced Macchiatos

Iced lattes are another great thing to make at home! While these drinks can seem fancy and complicated, they really aren't difficult to craft. 

How To Make a Home-Made Iced Latte 

Making an iced latte at home is almost as simple as making a hot latte. The only difference is you will not heat up your milk and you are going to need to add ice. For “fancier” iced lattes, you may need to make cold foam or add a few other ingredients, but really, this only takes a few extra seconds.

Even “sweet cream cold-foam” can be made by shaking some whipped cream up with a tablespoon of milk. Takes about 20 seconds, but saves you a few dollars per drink compared to paying for 'cold foam' from a coffee shop!

Iced Latte Ingredients

• Espresso
• Sweeteners of Your Choice
• Toppings 
• Milk 
• Ice

Instructions

So for an iced latte, first, prepare your espresso shots. While they are getting going, fill the coffee mug or reusable coffee cup of your choice to the top with ice. (For an iced homemade macchiato or mocha, simply line the cup with caramel or chocolate syrup before adding the ice.) 

Once your espresso is ready, mix any flavoring syrups or sweeteners in with the hot espresso. This helps: a.) cool the espresso down, and b.) get the sweeteners to integrate better. 

Then, pour the sweetened espresso mixture in your cup over the ice. Do this sort of slowly so that the hot coffee cools down as it passes over the ice. 

Finally, fill the rest of the cup with your preferred type of milk, and top everything off with whipped cream, sweet cream cold foam, or anything else.  

3. Chai Tea Lattes and Dirty Chai Lattes

A dirty chai is simply a chai tea latte or a latte with chai spice flavorings added plus espresso. An iced chai uses chai tea in place of espresso. It's that simple!

Making a dirty chai latte is very easy. It's just like making a hot latte, but you are just going to replace half of your espresso shots with a solution of extra-strength chai tea.

(Yes, there are chai tea powders out there that claim to make an easy chai latte, but I don't recommend most of these. It's easier and better tasting to just brew a couple of fresh chai tea bags or some loose-leaf chai for this type of latte.) 

How to Make a Dirty Chai at Home

It is so incredibly easy to make a dirty chai tea latte at home. You can use this recipe to craft a hot chai tea or an iced chai. It all depends on what you are in the mood for! 

Ingredients 

• Chai Tea (Loose leaf masala tea like this or black chai tea bags are both fine)
• Milk 
• Espresso
• Instructions 

For a delicious at-home dirty chai tea latte, you will use one part chai tea, one part espresso, and six parts milk. So, if you were making a 12-oz latte, you would need 2 oz of espresso, 2 oz of extra-strength chai tea, and 8 oz of milk.

*Regular (non-dirty) Chai Note

*For a regular chai latte, no need to use espresso, just add a 1:4 ratio of one-part triple strength chai tea to 3 parts water. By triple strength chai, I mean about three bags of chai per 8 (ish) ounces of water. The chai must be strong enough that when it has been mixed with lots of milk, you still get enough bold spiced chai flavors.

Dirty Chai Latte Instructions:

First, make some extra strong chai tea. You can do this by brewing your chai tea in hot water at double strength. One simple way to do this is to put one chai tea bag in 6ish oz of water and heat it up in the microwave for about 1 minute.

To make it a dirty chai, simply prepare an espresso shot as well. Or, if you want a chai tea latte that isn't dirty, just use twice as much chai tea and skip the espresso altogether. 

While the chai tea and espresso are brewing, warm up the milk. You should also take this time to sweeten the milk with brown sugar or the simple syrup flavoring of your choice. Then, mix everything together. You can top this chai tea latte with cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, pumpkin pie spice, or whipped cream! 

Iced Chai Latte Note:

For an iced chai or iced dirty chai latte, simply follow the same protocol above for lattes. The only main difference is that you will use strong chai tea in your drink instead of espresso. You can get black chai tea in bags in the tea aisle of most grocery stores, or buy it online in loose-leaf format here.