Emma Chamberlain Shares Her Best Espresso Tips For Making The Perfect Latte

Emma Chamberlain is living out her barista dreams as she celebrates the launch of Chamberlain Coffee’s Fancy Mouse Espresso Blend. The influencer has made her love of coffee into a lifestyle, and she has a particular soft spot for her latest release. “I’ve always been a big latte drinker,” Chamberlain tells Elite Daily. “And what do you need to make a latte? Espresso!” Chamberlain’s excitement for the new blend is palpable as she shares how it came to be, and all her best tips for making the perfect espresso drink.

While fans might associate Chamberlain with her steep-bag cold brews, the 19-year-old says creating Fancy Mouse Espresso Blend was a no-brainer. In fact, the California native says an espresso product for Chamberlain Coffee was a long time coming. "When I was younger — and even still now — my main coffee order was an iced latte with almond milk,” she says.

The blend, which the 19-year-old calls "a little shout-out for the espresso drinkers," costs $20 per bag and features notes of chocolate and cream with a sweet caramel finish. While it's a little more complicated to make than a classic cup of coffee (Chamberlain says “it's definitely a lot of trial and error”), she’s got you covered with these tips for first-time espresso drinkers.

In addition to making sure you grind your espresso beans finely to extract the maximum flavor, Chamberlain recommends enjoying it as a latte with milk or with some frothed milk poured over it. "With any milk on top, that's delicious. Add some cinnamon. I mean, you really can't go wrong."

Chamberlain, who says she had to wait until "the time was right" to release an espresso product, admits it can be intimidating to prepare espresso as compared to using a French press or Chemex.

"I think that making espresso is a lot more difficult, so I think it's just getting comfortable with your espresso machine or your Bialetti and figuring out what works best for you," she says. "It took me a long time to figure out how to make the perfect espresso."

During quarantine, Chamberlain's relationship to coffee has remained a constant for making her daily routine as normal as possible, starting the day with a cup before brushing her teeth or showering. Chamberlain admits, laughing, "It gets me out of bed and makes it so I don't sit in bed and just go on my phone for hours."

Like many other social media influencers, the 19-year-old has also had to adjust how she creates content during the ongoing pandemic. She says she had to come to terms with a very different reality filled with "mundane, daily stuff."

"I've had to get creative working with virtually nothing, in a way. I'm not going to concerts, I'm not going to music festivals. I'm not going on trips really at all," she says. "I think I used to feel this pressure that I needed to be doing crazy things in order to make a vlog interesting or a video interesting. I don't necessarily have the mental energy to do that anymore, so I've learned to appreciate the minimalism."

Chamberlain says her main focus now is on connecting with her audience through daily vlogs, which she says are more "intimate" than some of her other content.

"It's more about the conversation that you're having with the camera and the audience," she says. "There might be a video where I'm just in my house the whole day and I'm just hanging out with the camera, and that's OK. There's nothing wrong with that."

Lucky for Chamberlain’s fans, her new normal has also included creating more products for Chamberlain Coffee, and the YouTube star is already planning the brand's next steps. In addition releasing coffee variety packs so customers can test out different products, Chamberlain says “some fun merch” will be coming soon. While you wait, you can put Chamberlain's pro espresso tips to the test and perfect your latte skills.