espresso overpowering latte

[mewtwo]

My local coffeeshop makes a great vanilla soy latte so I tried copying it at home, however the taste is extremely espresso flavored and I can almost taste no "milky" (perhaps soy "milky") flavor and almost no taste of vanilla syrup when I am using the same amount of syrup and soymilk that they use.

Does anyone have an idea of what I am doing to make my espresso so potent?
I manually grind espresso roast beans till quite fine then push quite hard on my espresso grounds so it is at the "2 shot" line and packed very tightly. Then I continue the usual and it comes out extremely overpowering in each latte I make.

 

[PinkRose]

Are you attempting to make the same size latte (12 oz. or 16 oz.) that you get at your local coffee shop? Is it possible that the coffee shop only uses one shot of espresso when they make the lattes? If that's the case, then your two espresso shots would seem overpowering.

What type of machine are you using to make your espresso? I'm also wondering if you are grinding the beans too fine and if you're packing them too tightly.

Rose