Colombia Forum

yolatengo
Joined 2019
Posts: 545

3 years ago

Coffee thoughts

3 years ago

I’ll have a regular coffee.
No, you won’t, not in Colombia.

That’s how the “discussion” started - innocently enough. Actually, I wondered out loud to my friend how prevalent it was for cafés to serve a “regular” coffee in Colombia or the equivalent to the US version. “Regular” in the US denotes brewed coffee with cream/milk and sugar. The coffee and cream/milk are added to the final product. Fyi, I always get my coffee black in the US, so the milk part is irrelevant. And that’s called, duh, black coffee. Try asking for café negro here and you may be served any one of a variety of drinks, though generally tinto. Maybe an Americano. And what the heck is tinto? Well, like a lot of things coffee in Colombia, it depends on where you go or who you ask. In my experience, it’s been an awful small cup of mud, i.e., commodity-quality beans and thick. However, I’ve heard tales that excellent tintos can be had outside Medellin, something using panela (sugar cane).

Prompted by my curiosity and penchant to be argumentative, the discussion advanced to the different types of caffeine drinks – Ameicano, café con leche, cappuccino and mocha. All for the mindless purpose of comparing coffee customs in Colombia to the US

Ten minutes of research turned up variations in the way each drink was made in Colombia. Btw, did you know café con leche is a Latin drink? Try finding it in Duluth. But still, I turned up nothing that resembled a “regular coffee” or brewed coffee. Someone, somewhere - it has to be made! When I first arrived in Colombia, I thought café con leche was basically the equivalent. Nope. Café con leche is a weaker form of cappuccino using espresso. Ok, Americano? Nope, but… technically, an Americano is also made with espresso, espresso and water. It’s not brewed coffee.

Then again, I was just curious, I don’t really care. I’m happy with the choices in Colombia. But god forbid the gringo who asks for a regular joe with extra sugar.

Back to mayors flaunting the law and fictional dream houses for sale.

[Facts have not been checked and I know more than I think, hence, I take no responsibility for any of this]

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