Cafezinho: Brazil’s coffee
Cafezinho is not a coffee loving Brazilian footballer, but actually the most popular coffee drink in all of Brazil.
We could spend months talking about Brazilian coffee, such is the wealth and quality of the beans from the South American nation.
Coffee drinkers all over the nation, from the Favelas to the Amazon basin all prefer their hot drinks one way. Little.
With the Olympics taking place in the home of Samba, and the carnival kings, Rio, we thought we would take a closer look at the coffee drinking habits of the former Portuguese colony.
In particular how the worlds largest coffee grower consumed one of it’s biggest exports.
Cafezinho essentially means ‘little coffee’, and that is how the Brazilian public prefer to take their superb coffee beans.
Short, intense and very sweet, a cafezinho is a small measure of black coffee that has been pre-sweetened. It is sometimes served with sugar or sweetener on the side, but the preference is for the black coffee to be sweetened already.
Pure black coffee, unsweetened, is considered a barbarism. Brazil is a country where if you have the audacity to request a plain black coffee, you are likely to be met with confusion, stares and even giggles.
Mainly served in small plastic cups, the cafezinho has also become the after meal drink provided for free by almost all establishments. Upmarket locations offer a cafezinho in small china cups but the experience is almost exactly the same.
For most Brazilians the cafezinho is the only coffee rule, except for breakfast time, where coffee is mixed with hot milk. But for the most part this is the only exception to the ‘rule’.
If you want to try a cafezinho for yourself, here’s a quick guide:
- Add water to a pan — you’ll need a saucepan that you ONLY use for making coffee — add the sugar and dissolve well (use a heaped tablespoon for each 200ml of water).
- Bring to boil over medium heat.
- Once the water and sugar mixture begins to boil, add the coffee powder, stir well and remove from heat immediately.
- Pour the liquid through a coffee strainer — a traditional cloth coffee strainer is preferred, but a paper filter will suffice — directly into a demitasse cup.
It’s as simple as that to make great Brazilian coffee in mere minutes. Artificial sweetener can be used if you do not wish to use sugar, but by using half the measures, so half a heaped teaspoon per 200ml of water.
Now you’ve unlocked the secret of the ‘little coffee’, you can power your way through late nights watching the seldom seen sports like tchoukball and ‘running’…but why not try our exclusive Brazilian Yellow Bourbon coffee? It’s worth a visit…