The best gadget I bought this year is a milk frother

Back in February, I went to Los Angeles to take in some art and stayed in Koreatown. Down the street from my hotel, there was this little coffee shop — Stagger — that is, I think, best known for its matcha, which is good. But the drink I unexpectedly found myself obsessed with was their cream top, an iced Americano with, yep, vanilla cream on top. When I got back to Oakland, I kept thinking about how badly I wanted one.

For more than 20 years, I’ve been drinking my coffee — iced or otherwise — black. Originally this was because I knew I could put black coffee that had cooled off in the microwave to reheat it without worrying that the milk in it would curdle. (Gross, I know.) Then, as I started drinking better coffee, it felt like the best way to appreciate the expensive beans I was buying.

So my attachment to the cream top surprised me. And then, when Oakland had a gnarly heat wave in March, I decided there was one way I’d tolerate it: fancy coffee drinks. I splashed out $14 for the Zulay Kitchen frother and I was off.

A handheld foamer looks and works kinda like an immersion blender. I pour milk into a glass, stick the frother in there, and then hold the power button until it reaches my preferred consistency. When the disposable batteries it uses are fresh, this takes about 30 seconds to a minute. As the batteries degrade, it takes longer; if I’m getting impatient about how long it’s taking me to make my frothy treats, it’s time to change the batteries. The frother also works to beat eggs, mix protein powder or creatine into a drink, and make hot chocolate. But by far it’s gotten the most use making my coffee drinks as I set out to make a cream top of my own.

The cream top descended from the Einspänner, an espresso drink that’s named for a one-horse carriage. The original Viennese version used hot espresso, and the whipped cream on top served as a kind of insulation, which kept the drivers’ drinks hot for them when they were out in the cold. (Obviously, its popularity expanded beyond carriage drivers.) It isn’t clear to me how the Einspänner made it to South Korea, but it exploded in popularity there, with all kinds of variations, mostly iced. And then from South Korea, it made its way to the US, where the ground had already been cleared by Starbucks’ “cold foam” drinks.

The notable thing about the cream top, besides the addition of delicious fat and sugar to coffee, was that the cream wasn’t as light as latte foam, but wasn’t as heavy as ordinary whipped cream. It was melty and dripped slowly into the coffee.

My first experiments with my at-home cream top were pretty simple. I don’t have an espresso machine, but I do make concentrated cold brew in hot weather, which has a strong enough flavor to stand up against the foam. (Some recipes suggest powdered espresso if you don’t want to use concentrated cold brew.)

After I mastered the simple cream top, I began making forays into weirder breakfast treats, my favorite of which I… recreated from a Starbucks ad. It’s a cold brew with coconut ube cold foam, the top of which I dust with toasted coconut flakes. It is dank. (This is a recipe for a more sophisticated version than I make.) So when it was 90 degrees in Oakland for about two weeks running recently, this drink was how I consoled myself.

To be honest, I’m just recommending getting a frother. You can spend a lot on a milk frother and some people do. I relied on America’s Test Kitchen to steer me in the right direction — but outlets like Wirecutter and Bon Appétit have their own preferred options. This one is cheap and simple, and it’s been treating me right. I’m sure the Apple HomeView is nice, too, but in pleasure per dollar can it match a $14 cold foamer that takes AA batteries? I have my doubts.