Cafezinho
Cafezinhokah-feh-ZEEN-yoo
A small, strong, sweet black coffee with a heavy body, poured from a thermos and offered to anyone who walks through the door. It is brewed through a cloth bag, and in a lot of Brazilian homes the sugar is boiled with the water before the coffee touches it.
At a glance
- Coffee : water
- 1:10
- Active time
- 3 min
- Total time
- 8 min
- Makes
- 4 small cups
- Serve
- Hot
- Kit
- Cloth filter
Ingredients
Note: A paper filter cone works, but you lose some of the body. The cloth is what makes cafezinho taste like cafezinho.
Method
-
Rinse the cloth
Rinse the cloth filter in hot water and wring it out. A dry cloth absorbs the first coffee and tastes of fabric.
Never wash a coffee cloth with soap. Rinse it and keep it damp in a jar of water in the fridge.
-
Heat the water with the sugar
Bring the water and sugar to just short of the boil in a small pan, stirring until it dissolves. Take it off as the first bubbles appear.
This is the traditional way. Sweetening the water first gives an evenly sweet coffee and slightly changes how it extracts.
-
Coffee in the cloth
Put the coffee in the cloth filter on its stand over a pot or jug.
-
Pour slowly
Pour the hot sweet water over the coffee in a slow, steady stream, letting it drain through. It takes two to three minutes.
Some cooks stir the coffee into the hot water in the pan instead, then pour the lot through the cloth. Both are traditional.
2 to 3 minutes -
Into small cups, or a thermos
Serve straight away in small cups, or pour into a thermos to keep for the morning. Cafezinho is offered, not ordered.
Why this works
The cloth filter is the defining tool. Paper is dense and traps most of the coffee's oils and the finest particles, which gives a clean, light cup. Cloth has a looser weave and lets more of both through. That is why cafezinho has a heavier, rounder body than a pour-over made from the same beans and ratio. It sits somewhere between a paper filter and a French press.
Sugar in the water has a small extraction effect as well as a taste one. Dissolved sugar raises the water's boiling point slightly and changes its density, and many Brazilians say it makes a smoother cup. More importantly, it guarantees the sugar is fully dissolved in every drop, which matters in a drink that is often very sweet.
The ratio is strong for filter coffee, about one to ten, because the cup is small and because it is meant to be a quick, concentrated hit. Brazilian supermarket coffee is usually a dark roast, which suits the strength and the sugar, and the coffee is often labelled extra forte for exactly this use.
Brazil is the largest coffee producer in the world, and for most of the twentieth century much of its best coffee was exported while the domestic market drank darker, cheaper roasts. Cafezinho grew out of that. The diminutive, little coffee, is about hospitality more than size. It is offered to guests at home, in offices, in shops while you wait, and turning it down can feel slightly rude.
Variations
- Sem açúcar: unsweetened, increasingly common in cities.
- Café com leite: equal coffee and hot milk, the breakfast version.
- Pingado: a cafezinho with a few drops of milk.
- With rapadura: unrefined cane sugar in place of white, which gives a darker, caramel note.
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Questions
What is a cafezinho?
A small, strong, usually sweet black coffee, brewed through a cloth filter and served in small cups. It is Brazil's everyday coffee and a gesture of hospitality.
Why is cafezinho filtered through cloth?
Tradition, and body. Cloth lets more of the coffee's oils and fine particles through than paper, giving a fuller, heavier cup.
How do you clean a cloth coffee filter?
Rinse it in hot water, never with soap, and keep it damp in a jar of water in the fridge. Boil it occasionally to freshen it. Replace it when it stays stained or starts to smell.
Is cafezinho the same as espresso?
No. It is filter coffee, brewed by gravity through cloth rather than under pressure. It is strong for filter coffee, but less concentrated than espresso.