Latino Cafe Classics: Coffee Drinks From Across Latin America

Latino cafe classics include Cuba's sweet cafecito, Mexico's spiced café de olla, Colombia's tinto, Puerto Rico's café colao, Venezuela's guayoyo, Costa Rica's chorreado, Peru's café pasado, Brazil's cafezinho and pingado, and the café con leche poured across the region. Each one reflects how people in that country like to brew, sweeten and share coffee.

This is a country-by-country tour with a one-line how-to for each drink, so you can taste your way across Latin America from your own kitchen. Where we have a full recipe, we link to it.

Latino Cafe Drinks by Country: Quick Reference

Mexico and the Caribbean

Mexico: café de olla

Traditionally brewed in a clay pot, café de olla is coffee simmered with a cinnamon stick and piloncillo, an unrefined cane sugar. One-line how-to: warm water with cinnamon and piloncillo until dissolved, add medium-coarse coffee, steep off the heat a few minutes, strain. Full recipe: café de olla.

Cuba: cafecito and cortadito

Cuban coffee is short, dark and sweet, with a pale foam called espuma on top. One-line how-to: whip the first few drops of moka pot or espresso coffee with sugar into a paste, then stir in the rest. A cortadito adds a similar amount of steamed milk. Learn the espuma technique in our Cuban cafecito guide.

Puerto Rico: café colao

Colao is a casual form of colado, meaning strained. Puerto Rican households have long brewed coffee by pouring hot water over grounds held in a cloth sock filter. One-line how-to: put finely ground dark coffee in a cloth filter, pour just-off-the-boil water through it slowly, and serve with hot milk and sugar if you like. Background on the island's coffee: where coffee is grown in Puerto Rico.

The Andes and the North Coast

Colombia: tinto

In Colombia, a tinto is not red wine but a small cup of black coffee, often sweetened, sold everywhere from offices to street carts. One-line how-to: brew a light, slightly sweet black coffee and serve it in a small cup. More in our Colombian tinto article.

Venezuela: guayoyo and marrón

Venezuelans have precise names for their coffee orders. A guayoyo is a mild, diluted black coffee made with a cloth strainer, a negrito is a straight espresso, a marrón is roughly half coffee and half milk, and a con leche is mostly milk. One-line how-to for guayoyo: brew through a cloth or paper filter with more water than usual for a long, gentle cup. Read about the country's coffee history in Venezuelan coffee.

Peru: café pasado

Peruvian households traditionally make a concentrated coffee essence by dripping hot water slowly through grounds, then dilute it in the cup with hot water or milk. One-line how-to: spoon a few tablespoons of hot water at a time over fine grounds in a drip pot, then add the concentrate to hot water to taste. Full method: Peruvian café pasado.

Central America and the Southern Cone

Costa Rica: café chorreado

The chorreador is a wooden stand that holds a cloth bag, called a bolsita, above the cup. The name comes from chorrear, to drip or trickle. One-line how-to: put medium-fine coffee in the cloth bag and pour hot water over it slowly, letting it drip into the cup below. A pour-over cone with a paper filter gets you close. Explore the origin in Costa Rican coffee.

Brazil: cafezinho and pingado

Brazil's cafezinho, “little coffee,” is a small, sweet black cup offered as a gesture of welcome. The pingado, from pingar, to drip, is coffee with a splash of milk, a bakery breakfast staple. One-line how-tos: for cafezinho, dissolve sugar in the water before brewing a strong filter coffee; for pingado, add a few tablespoons of hot milk to a short coffee. See Brazilian cafezinho and what a pingado is.

Argentina and Uruguay: cortado and lágrima

In the Southern Cone, espresso-bar culture shows Italian influence. A cortado is espresso “cut” with a little milk, while a lágrima, meaning teardrop, is a glass of hot milk with just a drop of coffee. One-line how-to for cortado: pull a shot and add an equal amount of steamed milk. Our cortado guide covers ratios.

Café con Leche: The Region's Common Thread

From Havana to Buenos Aires, café con leche is the comfort drink people grow up with: strong coffee mixed with a generous amount of hot milk, often at breakfast with bread or pastry. Proportions vary by country and family. One-line how-to: brew a strong cup of dark roast and mix it roughly half and half with hot, frothed milk, sweetened to taste.

Tips for brewing Latin American styles at home

• Match the roast to the drink. Cafecito and café colao traditionally use dark roasts; tinto and guayoyo are lighter and gentler.
• Use unrefined sugars. Piloncillo or panela adds the molasses depth many of these drinks rely on.
• Cloth filters are worth trying. They let through more oils than paper, giving a rounder body.
• Serve small. Many of these drinks are meant for a few sips, shared often throughout the day.

Latino Cafe FAQ

What is the strongest Latin American coffee drink?

Cuban cafecito is usually the most intense: a short, espresso-strength coffee with a lot of sugar. Puerto Rican café colao made with dark roast is also very bold.

What is the difference between café con leche and a latte?

Both are coffee with hot milk, but café con leche is usually made with strong brewed or moka pot coffee in roughly equal parts with milk, while a latte is espresso with much more steamed milk and some foam.

What does tinto mean in Colombia?

In Colombia, tinto means a small cup of black coffee. It is the everyday coffee order and is often lightly sweetened.

Which Latin American country drinks the most coffee?

Brazil is the region's largest coffee producer and also a very large consumer of coffee, where small cups are part of daily hospitality. Per-person rankings shift from year to year, so check current figures if you need an exact number.

Taste Latin America at Home

To brew these latino cafe classics, start with coffee from the region. Our Latin American Blend brings nutty, cocoa-rich depth to cafecito and café con leche, while single origins such as Colombia and Mexico are lovely for tinto and café de olla. Browse every origin in our single origin collection; each Feel Espresso order is roasted 1–5 days before delivery.