Growing up in a Cuban household means drinking coffee. A lot of coffee. And it means learning how to make coffee at an early age.
For most of us Cuban kids our first words were, “Mami. Papi. Café.”
We’re not just talking about any coffee here. We’re talking super-sweet and tasty espresso. In fact, recalling my early childhood, I think Cuban parents added coffee and sugar to our milk just to get us kids to drink it every day. It totally worked. =D
One of the biggest cultural shocks when we landed on American soil was finding out that American kids did not drink espresso in their milk for breakfast. (I felt sorry for them. I know. Shut up.)
Café con Leche. Warm milk with espresso. That was our breakfast of choice. With hot, buttered (technically grilled!) Cuban bread. Let’s just have a holy moment of silence here… Ay, Dios mio.
Could there be a better way to start the day??
Fast forward to the 90’s with the green-logo’d coffee houses (or Four-bucks as we affectionately called them) popping up on every corner. They were serving something they called “lattes” to caffeine-thirsty consumers for about $4 a serving. I remember reading the description and watched them make one. “Hey! That’s a Café con Leche! I’ve been drinking those since birth!” (Okay, so I never actually said that out loud because then there would be a grumbling in the line of people needing their caffeine fix and who needs that kind of grief?)
If you do the math, that’s like over $100 dollars a month spent for something that you can make for pennies at home! Besides, no one makes a Café con leche better than a Cuban mami (or tia or abuela….).
The lovely people from the got milk? campaign are sooo on the ball here. They know what Cuban mothers have known for years – the marriage of milk and coffee are an ideal way to get your share of calcium each day. How cool is this mug??
This has become Adam’s favorite morning ritual. “Mom, make me a café con leche.”
I used to make these for my brother in order to wake him up each day (so I can practically make a café con leche in my sleep, probably because I was always barely awake when making them, but that's not important right now).
Nothing says “Buenos dias” like a sweet, homemade café con leche in the morning.
Café con Leche
6 to 8 oz. milk
3 oz. espresso
1 or 2 tsp. sugar (to taste)
1) Make your Cuban coffee (espresso).
2) Heat the milk in a saucepan over high heat (I suppose you could also zap your milk in the microwave, but we’re talking “old school” here) until it barely starts to foam.
3) Pour the espresso into the bottom of the cup. Pour the hot milk on top.
4) Stir in a couple of teaspoons of sugar to taste.
Serve with Pan Tostado…
Pan Tostado
1 – 6 inch piece of Cuban bread
Butter
Spread butter on both sides of bread and grill in a sandwich press, George Forman grill, or even on the stovetop in a skillet. The idea is to get the bread buttery and flat and toasted. The seriously awesome smell of the grilled toast and hot milk with coffee will make you very popular. It's easy to make friends if you're willing to share. 😉
Serve the Pan Tostado with your Café con Leche. Talk loudly and gesture a lot while you’re eating in order to experience a truly Cuban breakfast. 😉
So because the genius got milk? people were so generous to send me an extra….I’m going to share the love. =D
Let’s do a comment giveaway. Tell me about growing up drinking café con leche. Or the best place to get one if I was in Miami. Or just tell me how much you love Cuban coffee. (I’m easy that way. =D)
Leave me a comment and I’ll do a random drawing on Wednesday at 3 pm Pacific time to pick a winner for this cool goodie bag which includes the following:
- A fabulous got milk? mug.
- A cool milk-frothing-device-thingy.
- A packet of caramel iced-coffee mix.
- A bunch of fabulous coffee and milk recipes.
So let’s go….let’s talk latte…..
Me on Twitter: making coffee for the 4th time today. Does this qualify me as a "barista?"
My friend Srcohiba: just makes you Cuban. :-)))
So as I was going through my morning routine this morning – getting the cereal soaked, and make a cup of cafe con leche – I stumbled upon your post!I would agree that cafe con leche is straight from the heavens! God must truly love us to give us such wonderful drink. I wouldn’t be surprised if the manna that the Israelites in the desert got from God would have been cafe con leche. (to quite you: but that’s not important right now)
So, I am German, born and raised in Germany, and joined the hyphen-family by becoming German-American and moving to Miami in 2004. this is where I got introduced to cuban coffee and cafe con leche. and fell in LOVE!
I quickly aquired the skill and learned from true cubans the fine little secrets of making this fantastic morning drink.
and now the plan is as follows: I plan to bring cafe con leche to Germany…..!
we may have great cars and good engineering, and our chocolate is OUT of this world…but we DONT have coffee like this!
OK, so everybody in favor of operation ‘cuban coffee for German’ say AY!
Susi
I sit in shame as I sip my “cafe americano” with hazelnut coffeemate creamer. I am going to pull out my “Greca” (which is the name my Dominican family had for our cafetera) as soon as I finish here.I remember as a child growing up in Baltimore when my abuela Lela used to give me cafe con leche after Mom and Dad had left for work. My Dad was a pediatrician, and recognizing the early signs of ADHD in his 3 year old daughter (me), had strictly forbidden his Mother from giving me caffeine in any form. Of course, I had a steaming cup of cafe con leche every morning anyway! She would put a “surprise” in mine, a chunk of cheddar cheese, which would be all soft and melty by the time I got to the bottom of the mug. I’d smear it on my pan tostado…HEAVEN!
As far as places for cafecito here in South Florida, whenever my mother-in-law comes to town, we have to go to a little place called Bahamas Restaurant…they have the freshest fish in the city, hands down. It’s full of Cubans (and the occasional Dominican!) sitting at tables or at the Barra as we prefer, eating Rueda de Cherna frita, huevas de merluza, tostones rellenos con haiba, but I digress.
The best part of the meal is a delicious cafecito, which we think rivals the ones served at La Carreta. So delicious that I took a picture of it with my cell phone, and have it as my screen saver!
Love my Cuban coffee!
When my husband was still living in Cuba and I would go and visit, I remember waking every morning to the smell of cafe con leche. Sitting and enjoying my cafe con leche made me feel “at home” and relaxed. My mother-in-law was lucky enough to come and visit for a month last summer. All those memories came back, when I would wake to the smell of the cafe con leche. During the week, we are so rushed in the morning, that any quick coffee with do. But it is such a treat to make it on the weekend and curl up on the couch under a blanket. Thanks for the great post!
Cafe con leche…yum!Hubby recently perfected his cafe con leche, so that’s my first choice. And of course you can come over to have some when you are in town. A close second though, is Versailles (of course!). They make it with evaporated milk, if you ask, and it’s delicious!
Martica,I can so relate to your post!
Both of my children (1/4 Cubans) love their “cafe con leche” … they also started quite early in life … when they were still drinking from “el biberon” … they knew how to ask for “cafe con leche” … at the time I would make it with Sanka (caffeine-free) … and to this day … “cafe con leche” is a treat!
Before fancy froth-makers were available … I would pour the cafe con leche into my blender and whip it … thus, ending with a nice frothy cafe con leche …
I prefer to have mine with buttered Cuban crackers … Yum!!!
I wish you well 🙂 Melek
“Conscience keeps more people awake than coffee.” ~ Unknown
I wasn’t allowed to have cafe when I was little; however, my sister, who was 2.5 years older, could. She would drink it straight, no leche. I remember thinking how much I wanted to partake. I would even go as far as to offer anyone cafe when they came over – “Senor, quieres cafe? Mi Mama se lo hace en un momentico!”When I went off to college, I discovered the deliciousness of cafe. Ahhhh, cafe. My parents then bought me a cafetera that you could use in the microwave (disaster) and eventually bought me my own cafetera. It’s beautiful! It doesn’t get used often anymore, as we have one of those Krups America/Espresso maker thing-a-ma-jigs. But still… every once in awhile it’s worth it to pull out the cafetera, make a big pot of cafe and drink it with steamed milk. With splenda for me, no sweetener for the Gringo husband. 🙂
So….My children who are growing up in Texas where tortillas con huevos y chorizo are the common breakfast food even for the gringos, are totally Cuban when it comes to their breakfast. Every morning I line up the travel mugs and start the process of the “Cubanito cafe” as my ten year old calls it.
The pan cubano (which is actually a “french baguette” from Sam’s Club” is grilled in the aluminum foil on the George Foreman grill and wrapped in paper towels (still in th foil)and passed out between 6:45 and 7:00 am.
Needless to say my Honda Pilot is cute the cuban caravan filled with cafe con leche and pan tostado scents everyday. The heck with new car smell anyway!
Love ya,
Your Cubanita in Dallas!
Gladys Alexander
[email protected]
I’m dominican so we could be cultural cousins. While I didn’t get cafe con leche every morning (in my mom’s defense I just wasn’t a morning person) we did get it pretty often as kids. My grandfather loves coffee so much he would keep “la greca” on the stovetop all day to keep pouring himself sips of cold coffee all day.Now growing up in Miami I certainly miss getting cuban bread and cuban toast. Now I just have to make my own (I’m in NC) since the local supermarket wants to charge $2.70 for their pseudo-cuban bread.
angela, little did your dad know that caffeine in small regulated doses is supposed to be wonderful for mild cases of adhd (I self medicate with iced tea LOL)Another dominicana who grew up with la greca.
Ah, I love this post! I had a bad milk allergy as a little kid, and had to drink goat’s milk, so my grandmother put plenty of Cuban coffee into it each morning, and heaps of sugar, too, to kill the goat-y flavor. Then, at preschool, I’d get in trouble for not taking a nap! I didn’t put two and two together until adulthood.
Cafe con leche was a staple growing up. I wake up each morning to the aroma of good Cuban coffee.My Dad loved it so much that he would also have cereal (e.g., Corn Flakes) with cafe con leche!
This post brings back some great memories of when I moved to Miami to go to school. I had never had Cuban coffee before that. Now I grew up with cafe con leche but it was Costa rican cafe con leche. I have to say that I preferred the Cuban cafe con leche. I remember the first time I had it was when a classmate took me to Versailles restaurant in Little Havana. That was also the first time I tried Cuban pan tostado. OMG it was heaven. ANd the cafe con leche was the best I had. During my time at school, we would always go get our cafe con leche from this little restaurant around the school. THen when we had to study late we would go get cortaditos to stay up all night. I don’t live there anymore but will never forget how wonderful it is.
I love to help Daddy (or sometimes Mommy) make coffee in the morning. I’ve been helping since I was two years old, several months already, as I am now three and a bit. Daddy gets the jar of beans down from the shelf. I take the lid off and start to measure out four scoops using the big coffee scoop. I use the lid of the bean grinder to scrape off the excess beans from the scoop. I dump the beans carefully into the top of the grinder. Then I put the lid on and use the scoop to hold the compartment for the ground coffee in place. Daddy turns the knob on the grinder and it makes a lot of noise. In fact, I used to call the machine ‘NOISE!’ When it’s done, I tap the compartment a couple of times and pull it out. I carefully dump it in the cafetière (French press), if that is what we are using that morning. Then Daddy pours the hot water in. I put the lid on the cafetière and press the four-minute timer. When it goes BEEP BEEP BEEP, I let Daddy know, because he can’t hear it. Then I press down the filter on the cafetière (with a little help from Daddy). I also count out the Splenda tablets (two each) for their mugs and help stir the coffee, Splenda, and milk. I’m a pretty good barista-in-training they tell me!Lately, though, Daddy almost always uses his ‘moka’ coffee maker, an espresso maker that Mommy gave him for his birthday while we were in Italy last September. I help measure the coffee into the moka. Sometimes we make a nice round Tombliboo house out of the ground coffee. (The Tombliboos are some characters from ‘In the Night Garden’ on the BBC’s CBeebies channel: http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/inthenightgarden/) Then I get to tamp the coffee down with the tamper before Daddy puts the moka together and cooks it on the stove. We then put a jug of milk in the microwave for two and a half minutes. I run to open the microwave when it’s done. Daddy foams it up with a little whizzy thing. Then he pours it over the sweet coffee.
Daddy and Mommy smile so much when they have their coffee that I started asking for my own. Sometimes I just get a babyccino or miniccino or whatever you call it when you have only the foamed milk with some chocolate sprinkles on top. But sometimes they let me have some of their coffee as well, especially if it is decaf that time. Here you can see me enjoying my first cafe con leche — I liked it a latte!
JoMo’s Daddy says, “Too bad it’s a random drawing!” He also wonders how one gets a George Foreman Grill in Cuba, though it probably won’t be very long before you can.
…I will really need my cafe con leche tomorrow too as I have a hot air balloon ride at 6:30 AM. My junior barista will probably need some too, lucky guy.
Being mexican, i also remember the delicious café con leche. It was always made for me by my abuelita [mom wasn’t so keen on her kids having caffeine in the afternoon!]. It was also fairly sweet and frothy. I’ve since migrated to just plain black coffee in the mornings but sometimes i will have a cafecito con leche as a comfort drink ;)By the way, great blog. Nunca me lo pierdo!
Cafe con leche in a bottle…that’s what makes you Cuban!
Forget “got milk” (spoken in love by a Dairy MIL), how about “got coffee”? I so need coffee right now! Kisses
I did not like to eat breakfast very much as a kid, especially on school days. My mom would implore (en espanol) ‘at least drink your cafe con leche for me!’Ever since it has remained my ultimate comfort food. The nectar of the gods.
Gracias Mami,
xoxo
I grew up in Miami but did not discover Cuban Coffee until the 80’s (I had moved away some years prior).I was hooked in no time. I’d order a colada, forgoing the leche. It seemed criminal when I moved away that they had no little corner windows where you could get a colada.
In Memphis I saw a Cuban restaurant (allegedly) so I went in and ordered a colada. They obviously had no clue. Finally after some explanation they tried to fake it with a Mr Coffee espresso maker. I have no idea where they got the cafe they used. I knew I’d been duped by FAKE Cubans!!
I complained to anyone who’d listen that fake Cubans were running a fake Cuban restaurant.
Finally a few stores were found which sold Bustelo so I was able to make my own at home. The fake Cubans went out of business and I found out through the grape vine that they were actually Venezuelan. After living behind La Carreta for years, and walking distance to two other sources of the good stuff, I was particularly bitter about getting my hopes up only to be dashed by pretenders.
I find anything but the real thing thing hard to take so I pretty much make my own. They should have Cuban coffee everywhere like in Miami. It is the thing that makes that city go.
Just to let you know that JoMo dictated his blog entry…er…comment to Mommy, not Daddy. Daddy just had read what Mommy, er, JoMo had written. Hence the added comments by Daddy above. But their position makes you think that maybe Daddy had been JoMo’s amanuensis! (er…scribe….) (Actually, most of it is lifted from a couple of JoMo’s old blog entries.) 🙂
I grew up drinking it! I had no idea that Americans frowned on coffee for children – it doesn’t have much of an effect on me (maybe for that reason). But I love cafe con leche. When I moved away from Miami, it was hard to not be able to go anywhere and get some, but I’ve perfected my cafe con leche here and love sharing it with my American friends.
Hi, I just came across your blog and I love it, soy Mexicana pero we still love our cafe con leche to!!!!I would like to know how you got ahold of your Got Milk travel mugs, I must have one of these( okay I don’t necessarily need it but they sure are cute). Enjoy your evening, Diana
My husband lived in Cuba when Castro and Batista were fighting for control of the country. The family left a year after Castro gained power. His favorite breakfast to this day is cafe con leche with pan tostada.