A $14 Handheld Frother Becomes a Verge Writer's Best Gadget of the Year

The drink came from Stagger, a small coffee shop down the street from the writer's hotel in Koreatown during a February trip to Los Angeles to see art. The shop is best known for its matcha, according to the account, but the item the writer kept thinking about after returning to Oakland was an iced Americano topped with vanilla cream.

For more than 20 years the writer had taken coffee black, first because cooled coffee could be reheated in a microwave without milk curdling, and later because black seemed the best way to taste expensive beans. When a heat wave hit Oakland in March, the writer spent $14 on a Zulay Kitchen frother and began making cream tops at home.

The device resembles a small immersion blender. Milk goes into a glass, the frother is held under the surface and the power button is pressed until the milk reaches the wanted consistency — roughly 30 seconds to a minute on fresh disposable batteries, and longer as they weaken. The writer also uses it to beat eggs, mix protein powder or creatine into drinks and make hot chocolate, but most often for coffee.

According to the account, the cream top descends from the Einspänner, a Viennese espresso drink named for a one-horse carriage, in which hot espresso was capped with whipped cream that insulated the drink for drivers working in the cold. The writer said it is unclear how the drink reached South Korea, where it became popular in many variations, mostly iced, before moving to the United States, where Starbucks' cold foam drinks had already introduced the idea.

What distinguishes a cream top, besides the added fat and sugar, is texture: lighter than latte foam but heavier than ordinary whipped cream, melting and dripping slowly into the coffee. Without an espresso machine, the writer used concentrated cold brew in hot weather, noting that some recipes call for powdered espresso instead.

The experiments grew more elaborate. The writer's favorite is a recreation of a drink seen in a Starbucks advertisement: cold brew with coconut ube cold foam dusted with toasted coconut flakes, which the writer drank through roughly two weeks of 90-degree days in Oakland.

The recommendation is simply to buy a frother, the writer said, adding that America's Test Kitchen guided the choice while outlets including Wirecutter and Bon Appétit have their own preferred models. The $14 device, which runs on AA batteries, was judged a better pleasure-per-dollar purchase than pricier appliances.