Espresso / latte art instructional videos

[nathanm]

There are a bunch of instructional videos for making espresso, foaming milk, making latte art and other barista skills. Here is a example selection from one vendor.

Which of these is the best? Are any of them very good?

Basic barista skills are one topic, advanced skills are another and not all videos would be equally good at both. I am interested in comments on any or all of them. Surely somebody on the forum must have looked at each of them at some point.

For example, does anybody on eGullet honestly claim they learned to pour latte art from one of these videos?

Put another way, does a video help more, or less, than going through 5 gallons of milk practicing? They certainly should, since they cost a lot more than 5 gallons of milk.

I wonder if there is something other than espresso you can use to practice making latte art. Learning means making a lot of bad ones, would be nice not to waste all that espresso

[malachi]

The Schomer videos are probably the best option.

It's going to take practice.

Videos are better than no videos. Videos plus books are better than videos alone. But nothing is as good as actual training.