Cuban coffee, or café cubano, is strong, dark coffee sweetened while it brews. The first few drops from the pot are beaten hard with sugar into a pale, creamy paste called espumita. The rest of the coffee is stirred in, and a sweet, tan foam rises to the top of each small cup. All you need is a Moka Pot, finely ground dark-roast coffee, and ordinary sugar.
A single serving is called a cafecito: a few sips, very sweet, very strong, and usually shared. Cafés make it with an espresso machine. At home, in Cuba and across Miami, the stovetop pot is the everyday way.
Start with this recipe
For a 3-cup Moka Pot. Makes three small cafecitos.
You need 150g of water, 18g of finely ground dark-roast coffee, and 2 tablespoons (about 25g) of white sugar. You also need a small heatproof jug or measuring cup with a spout, a teaspoon, and small cups.
- Measure the sugar into the small jug and set it beside the stove.
- Fill the pot. Pour room-temperature water into the boiler to just below the safety valve. Fill the basket with coffee, level it with a finger, and do not press it down. Screw the top on firmly.
- Heat gently. Put the pot on medium-low heat with the lid closed.
- Catch the first coffee. When you hear the first soft bubbling, the coffee has started to arrive. Lift the pot off the heat by its handle and pour about a teaspoon of coffee, no more than 10g, from the spout onto the sugar. Put the pot back on the heat.
- Whip the espumita. Beat the sugar and coffee hard with the teaspoon for 1–2 minutes, until it turns into a thick, pale tan paste, like soft caramel frosting.
- Finish the brew. When the pot gives its first loud gurgle, take it off the heat and run the base under cold water to stop it.
- Combine. Pour the rest of the coffee slowly into the jug, stirring gently. The espumita lifts to the top as a light, creamy foam.
- Serve. Pour into small cups, and spoon a little of the foam onto each one.
Keep the lid closed throughout: you pour the first coffee from the spout, not the top. The pot keeps brewing while you whip, which is fine on medium-low heat; the whole brew takes four to six minutes, enough time to make a good foam.
Getting the espumita right
The foam works because there is so little liquid. A teaspoon of strong coffee dissolves just enough sugar to make a thick paste, and beating it traps tiny air bubbles. When the hot coffee goes in, the paste rises and spreads into foam. The most common mistake is pouring too much coffee onto the sugar at the start. The sugar dissolves into a thin syrup, and there is nothing left to whip.
| What happens | Likely cause | First change |
|---|---|---|
| Runny syrup, no foam | Too much coffee on the sugar | Start with a teaspoon or less, and add drops only if it stays dry |
| Dry and gritty | Too little coffee | Add a few more drops and keep beating |
| Thin foam that vanishes quickly | Not beaten long enough | Beat until the paste is pale and thick enough to hold its shape |
| The pot finishes before the foam is ready | Heat too high | Lower the heat so the brew takes four to six minutes |
Make it easier. Use a narrow jug or cup, so the spoon reaches all the sugar. A handheld milk frother or a small whisk gets there faster than a spoon.
Which sugar. White granulated sugar is the most common choice, and the easiest to whip. Demerara or other raw cane sugars work too, and add a light molasses note. Most sugar substitutes will not foam the same way.
How sweet. Two tablespoons for a 3-cup pot gives the traditional sweetness, which is very sweet. For less, use 1 to 1½ tablespoons. Much below that, there is not enough sugar to whip into a proper foam.
For other pot sizes
The pot sets the amount of coffee and water. Fill the basket level and the boiler to just below the valve, as in the Moka Pot guide, and scale the sugar with the water:
| Pot | Water | Coffee | Sugar | Serves |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1-cup | About 60g | About 7g | 2½ teaspoons (about 10g) | 1 |
| 3-cup | About 150g | About 18g | 2 tablespoons (about 25g) | 3 |
| 6-cup | About 300g | About 30g | ¼ cup (about 50g) | 6 |
Pots vary by brand, so weigh your own pot’s water and coffee once. The espumita technique is the same at every size: a teaspoon of coffee to start, two for a 6-cup pot.
The coffee
Use a dark roast, ground fine. Cuban coffee is meant to taste bittersweet, like dark chocolate, and that bitterness is what balances all the sugar. A light roast with this much sugar tastes oddly sour and thin. Light vs dark roast explains why.
The Cuban-style brands sold in many US supermarkets, such as Café Bustelo, Café Pilón, and La Llave, come dark-roasted and finely ground in vacuum-packed bricks or cans, ready for a Moka Pot. Any dark roast ground for a Moka Pot or espresso works just as well. Grind it fine, like table salt, and slightly coarser than espresso; see the grind scale.
A cafecito tastes intense but holds less caffeine than you might think. A 3-cup pot uses 18g of coffee, a little less than a mug of drip, and it is shared three ways. See which coffee has the most caffeine.
How it is served
Cafecito. One serving, in a small cup about the size of an espresso cup. Drink it hot and fairly quickly, while the foam is still on top.
Colada. A larger serving, about four to six cafecitos’ worth, poured into one cup and served with a stack of tiny cups for sharing. It is the coffee you buy for a group, and Miami’s walk-up café windows, the ventanitas, sell it all day. At home, a 3-cup pot is a colada for three: pour it into a small jug, set out the little cups, and let everyone help themselves.
Variations with milk
Cortadito
A cafecito topped with roughly the same amount of steamed milk. Many people use evaporated milk, alone or mixed with whole milk, which tastes richer and slightly caramelized.
Brew the recipe above. For each cup, heat about 40–60g of milk until it steams, and froth it lightly. Pour the sweetened coffee into the cup and add the milk. It is the Cuban relative of the Spanish cortado; latte vs cappuccino vs flat white covers the rest of the family.
Café con leche
The breakfast version: sweetened Cuban coffee in a large mug of hot milk, with much more milk than coffee. It is traditionally served with tostada, Cuban bread buttered and pressed flat on a griddle, for dunking.
For two mugs, brew the 3-cup recipe and heat 400g of whole milk until it steams, without letting it boil. Divide the sweetened coffee between two large mugs and top them up with the milk. Many people skip the espumita for café con leche and simply stir the sugar into the finished coffee; the foam disappears under that much milk anyway.
With an espresso machine
Put about 1 tablespoon (12g) of sugar in a small jug for a double shot. Pull the shot into a small cup. As soon as the first teaspoon or so has run in, tip it onto the sugar and put the cup back under the spout. Whip the espumita while the shot finishes, then stir the rest of the shot into it.
Use your usual double shot, about 18g of coffee in and 36g in the cup. A darker roast and a slightly shorter shot suit the sugar. The espresso guide covers the shot itself.
Without a Moka Pot
An AeroPress concentrate is strong enough. Brew 18g of coffee, ground a little finer than usual, with 90g of water at about 91°C. Steep for a minute and press; you get about 55g of strong coffee. Take a teaspoon of it to whip with 1 tablespoon of sugar, then stir in the rest. The foam is a little lighter than from a Moka Pot, but the drink is recognizably the same.
Fix the cup
| What you notice | Likely cause | First change |
|---|---|---|
| Bitter or burnt under the sweetness | Heat too high, or the pot ran too long | Lower the heat; stop at the first loud gurgle |
| Weak, even with the sugar | Grind too coarse, or basket not full | Grind finer; fill the basket level |
| Too sweet | Too much sugar for your taste | Use 1 to 1½ tablespoons for a 3-cup pot |
| No foam on top | Espumita too wet, or not beaten enough | See the espumita table above |
| Sour or thin | A light roast | Use a dark roast |
| Grounds in the cup | Grind too fine | Grind a touch coarser |
The Moka Pot guide covers problems with the pot itself, such as leaks, sputtering, or a brew that stops.
A little history
Coffee reached Cuba in 1748, when José Antonio Gelabert brought plants from Hispaniola. It grew into a real industry from the 1790s, after French planters fleeing the revolution in Saint-Domingue, now Haiti, settled in eastern Cuba and planted coffee in the mountains there. The small, sweet, espresso-style cafecito came much later, with espresso machines and stovetop pots in the twentieth century. After 1959, Cubans who left for Miami brought it with them, and it has been part of the city’s daily rhythm ever since.
If you enjoy strong coffee sweetened in the brewing, two other traditions on this site do it differently: Vietnamese coffee drips over sweetened condensed milk, and Turkish coffee is sweetened in the pot as it heats.