Cafe con Leche

Café con leche is a delicious Spanish coffee drink that mixes equal parts strong coffee and milk! Here’s how to make it at home.

love a good cup coffee with leche? This Spanish-style drink is popular in Spain and Latin America, and the blend of bittersweet coffee and rich milk is sheer perfection. As a student in Madrid during my studies, I ordered these regularly. The intensely strong coffee was always served by the glass and aggressively sweetened. This recipe is a recreation of the café con leche I remember making and is incredibly easy to make at home!

What is a cafe con leche?

coffee with milk (“coffee with milk” in Spanish) is a coffee drink made from strong coffee or espresso and frothed milk. Originating in Spain and popular in Latin America, the drink uses equal parts coffee and milk. It’s like French coffee with milk, but it is usually served sweet. What you need to prepare a café con leche:

• Strong coffee or espresso
• whole milk
• Sugar

The café con leche ratio is usually equal parts coffee and milk, but can vary depending on the barista. You can vary this ratio to suit your taste.

For coffee, use moka pot or espresso

What is the best coffee for a café con leche? strong coffee. Coffee in Spain is much stronger than American coffee. You should use a dark roasted bean here. If you have it, a Moka Pot or Bialetti is the best choice of coffee strength you can get in Spain. Or you can use espresso! We like to use Moka Pot here because it’s the Spanish flavor I can remember, but it’s also delicious with espresso. Here are the best coffee methods:

Use whole milk for the best flavor

The best milk for café con leche? whole milk. It’s the ideal richness to accompany bittersweet coffee. Of course, American milk tastes slightly different than Spanish milk in ways I can’t exactly quantify. But it’s the closest match: and it’s the best.

Would you like to prepare café con leche without dairy products? Oat milk is the best choice. Non-dairy milk froths best. It won’t taste quite the same, but it’s still delicious.

Steam or froth milk

One of the advantages of café con leche is that the quality of the frothed milk is much lower than that of a café au lait. In a latte you’re looking for the perfect color-like microfoam texture, especially when you’re making latte art. But for café con leche, you can simply steam or froth the milk using the method of your choice: no precise texture needs to be achieved. It’s a lighter, more relaxed drink. Here are some options:

• froth milk with a hand frother, French press or whisk. The best tool is a frother if you have one, but a French press works great too. A whisk makes really big bubbles in the foam, but it works for café con leche. Go to How to froth milk.
• Steam the milk with an espresso machine. Use the directions to stretch the milk 20-25% up. Go to How to steam milk.

This is how you sweeten café con leche

You can sweeten the café con leche according to your preferences! The café con leche I’ve had in Spain has always been sweet enough to offset the strength of the coffee. But go with your gut feeling! Here is a golden rule:

• 2 teaspoons of sugar has the most traditional taste; it’s quite sweet and a nice balance with the bitter coffee
• 1 teaspoon of sugar is subtly sweet yet delivers a nice balanced taste

Feel free to sweeten to your liking! If you want to use a natural sweetener, try honey, maple syrup, or agave.

More coffee drinks

There are so many delicious coffee drinks you can make at home! Here are a few more from our Barista series: