Project 4: Classification

What color is your Café?
Café means more than coffee in Latin America. Coffee has always played an important role in history, literature and everyday life in this region. The coffee industry has had a significant effect on the cultures where it is produced and consumed, but it is in the color and the way coffee effects everyday life that makes it a central theme to Latin American life, prominently referenced in poetry, fiction, and regional history.

Be prepared because when you enter a café and order coffee in Latin America, they will ask what type of coffee you want? What they are really asking is: What color do you want? Coffee is used to describe the skin color of Latin American people, the result of the mixing of races and colors between mulatos and Spanish. On a cultural level, color terminology for race has evolved, and is now used as reference for many things, including types of café.

Based on color variations of human skin tone and traditions, the categories depend on the strength and the proportion of milk. To those who are accustomed to a 12 oz. “tall” cup of coffee being the smallest available size, you may be surprised by the immensely popular Latin America “cafecito”, which is smaller than your average shot of tequila. These intensely flavorful mini-coffees, which cost just a few cents, are a daily treat for many Latin Americans. You can find a cafecito, coffee fix, or a café in many small grocery stores, cafeterias or from street vendors, who carry thermoses full of coffee up and down the overcrowded streets in the most Latin American cities.

GUAYOYO
The Spaniards brought African slaves to Latin America during times of conquest. The native people called the black skin color ouayo, which in time translated to guayoyo. Is a black concentrated coffee beverage brewed by forcing very hot water under high pressure through coffee that has been ground to a consistency between extremely fine and powder. The defining characteristics of this coffee include a thicker consistency than drip coffee, a higher amount of dissolved solids than drip coffee per relative volume, and a serving size that is usually measured in shots.

The guayoyo can be prepared clear or dark and the quality depends in these three major parts: the heart, body, and reddish-brown foam that floats on the surface of the coffee. The dark guayoyo is a short black coffee that is darker and thick, and it is very foamy.

MARRÓN
Means brown in Spanish and is the same word that has been used in the 20th and 21st centuries to describe mixed race Latin Americans. When “black” and “white” humans mix the result is usually some type of “brown”. It’s this brown to refer to a coffee drink with drops of milk served in a glass or a medium cup.

There are two different kinds of Marrón coffees, light brown and dark brown, which is determined by the amount of milk added. Marroncito is the same coffee but served in a small glass or shot.

CAFÉ CON LECHE
Is a coffee-based beverage, which translated from Spanish, literally means "coffee with milk." Similar to the French café au lait and the Italian caffè e latte, café con leche is a Spanish coffee beverage consisting of strong or bold coffee (sometimes espresso) mixed with scalded milk. It is also served with sugar mixed according to taste. The beverage is extremely common in many Latin American countries and communities around the world and is normally served with breakfast.

TETERO
The translated to English word tetero means baby bottle and it refers to the whiter color that this type of coffee has. In Latin American the white populations are descendants of 16th century to 19th century colonial era and post-independence immigrants. White people are distinguished by pale skin which is the color of tetero. In tetero milk is hardly painted with coffee, which gives you a flavor to coffee beverage.

Bottom line, there is a coffee-color tradition. In every block you can find a place to drink coffee, in bakeries, tiny restaurants, ice-cream shops and, of course coffee shops large and small. The best thing is than even in the most modest places you can get a delicious gourmet cup of coffee at a reasonable price. So there you have it a whole variety of coffee for drinking.

You can also ask for the precise temperature you want. A con leche caliente (hot) or a con leche tibio (tepid). They don’ do the cold coffees. But the very best thing is that you can ask for your coffee exactly the way you want. Just ask por favor, (please) and enjoy.