Coffee as They Drink It in Latin America

In Colombia, coffee is made with agua de panela.

From Mexico to Argentina, Latin America is a region full of great coffee and creative people. No matter where we are, we have our unique way to do even the most common activities. Our coffee is famous, so we take it seriously. Very seriously. And by ‘seriously,’ we mean that coffee is the perfect excuse to have fun and share the best moments with the people we love the most.

There is no “Latin American” method to brew coffee. Our cultural diversity makes it impossible to pick simply one. That’s the reason why, today, we’re going to explore some of the most popular ways of enjoying our favorite drink all across the continent. If you’re a fan of the flavors of Latin American coffee, live the whole experience by trying these recipes!

Costa Rica: Café chorreado

Careful planting, harvesting, and processing characterize Costa Rica’s coffee culture. In the final part of the process, Ticos brew coffee with a chorreador, a wooden tool that holds a filter made of cotton. Café chorreado is part of a tradition that goes back to many generations. Everyone learned it from their grandparents and continued brewing coffee like this today.

According to Costa Ricans, café chorreado has deep flavors and aromas.  To brew a chorreado, we need to preheat the chorreador and measure how much coffee and water we’re going to use. We then put the coffee in the cotton filter and start dampening it with hot water. We continue to pour the water slowly, with patience, and we never let it fill the filter all the way to the top. When it’s done, we don’t let the filter dripping, but put it away and clean it thoroughly. And there we have it! Our very own café chorreado.

Argentina: café cortado and lágrima

In the city of Buenos Aires, you’ll never walk for three blocks without finding a new café. For Argentinians, stopping to drink a cup of coffee in the middle of the day, whether it’s to enjoy it alone or with friends, is part of their coffee culture and traditions.

The most famous ways to brew coffee are café cortado and lágrima. To prepare a cortado, you need to use a proportion of ¾ of coffee for ¼ of milk, and add a fine layer of foam on the surface. It’s the most popular way to have coffee in Buenos Aires.

When it comes to the lágrima, we talk about a black coffee to which you only add a “tear” or a drop of milk. Just enough to change the color of the drink.

Cuba: sweet and strong

Cuban coffee is famous for its strong flavor and full body. To brew it, you’ll need to pour cold and clear water into the coffee maker. It’s important that the coffee is prepared with extremely clean water. Afterwards, introduce the coffee inside the filter and start heating it up.

Cuban coffee is very sweet. Sugar is one of the most important ingredients in the mix. As coffee starts to boil, add a small dose of sugar to the pot and start stirring. Once it has boiled, pour more sugar inside and stir until you get the thick and dense consistency that’s so traditional of Cuban coffee! An extra layer of foam on the surface of your drink at the end will do the final trick.

Colombia: Tinto

In Colombia, coffee means family. Their traditional ways of brewing coffee pass down from generation to generation and have stayed in the hearts of Colombian people for many years. Not everyone like Colombian tintos, though. Many coffee experts believe this brewing method is wrong and doesn’t bring the best out of the famously excellent Colombian coffee beans. We still encourage you to try it and decide on your own!

In order to brew a tinto, follow these instructions: Lit the fire and start boiling the water. Right before it’s boiled, add four tablespoons of ground coffee. In a separate pot, make agua de panela by adding unrefined sugarcane to boiling water. After three or four minutes, remove the coffee from the boil and add the sweet agua de panela. Focus on the flavors of the panela mixed with coffee and tell us how you like it! At That Coffee Roasters, we love to explore the different coffee nuances of every region. We know we’re not simply talking about a drink, but about a cultural experience that has been engraved in our traditions and families for centuries.

Cuban coffee is known for its sweet and strong flavors.

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That Coffee Roasters

Phone Number: (305) 821-8811

2697 W. 76 Street, Hialeah, Florida 33016

Facebook: That Coffee Roasters

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Print Your Pictures in Latte Art with Edible Inks

Would you pay for it?

Are you a fan of latte art? Who isn’t nowadays? Having beautiful designs accompanying your cup of coffee is just so fun and pretty. They make some good Instagram material as well. It’s really cool to see all the baristas that put so much dedication into every cup of coffee they serve. But what if you could decide the exact design that you want on your drink? What if there were no limits to what you want your latte to reflect?

Now it’s possible. Thanks to 3D printing technology, you can have any pictures you want to be drawn on the surface of your cup of joe. If you’re a selfie addict, you can also have your own pictures on them as well, although that might be… a little narcissistic. But hey, you do you.

How does it work?

In only ten seconds you could have a highly detailed image on your latte. These machines combine 3D printing with an ink-jet system to create complex imagery. They use natural coffee extracts, called Ripple pods, to draw the pictures with different shades of brownish colors.

Through the Ripple app, you can choose from a gallery the design you wish to have on your cup. You can also select a picture from your own camera roll and pick anything, from inspirational messages to images of your loved ones or friends. After you’ve selected the image, it can be edited, scaled, filtered and even have text added to customize your latte art as much as you want to!

Steam CC, the company behind the printer, sells the product for $999, available to commercial establishments that sell coffee. It includes a Wi-Fi enabled device and hundreds of images to choose from, with new ones constantly being uploaded to the cloud. Artists can also submit their work for consideration! Typically, the system automatically adjusts all designs to a range of cups up to 7’ high and 4.5’ wide.

If you have the mobile Ripple app, you can find cafes within your zone that serve drinks with a Coffee Ripple printer and head there to pick your own creation.

If you have a restaurant or a coffee shop, these printers could be a really cool way to offer a unique experience to your customers and increase brand loyalty. Cafes are perfect places to hang out with friends, and people are always looking for things they can share and talk about with their loved ones. Giving your customers the option to customize their own products and even give them a sentimental value is a great example of an experience worth sharing with others!

So would you like to print your own pictures in your latte art? Even if you end up drinking it up, it can be really fun and cool way to surprise your friends and family. Tell us in the comments what you think and stay updated with our content by following us on That Coffee Roasters’ social media!

All you have to do is choose a picture.

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That Coffee Roasters

Phone Number: (305) 821-8811

2697 W. 76 Street, Hialeah, Florida 33016

Facebook: That Coffee Roasters

Instagram: thatcoffeeroasters

Alan Adler: The Inventor of the AeroPress Coffee Machine

How do these coffee machines work?

If you’ve ever looked for the best coffee makers to have in your home so you can brew the daily cup of joe that wakes you up every morning, chances are you’ve heard of the AeroPress, or you might have one in your kitchen. But what’s an AeroPress in any case? It’s a device for brewing coffee that was invented back in 2005 by an engineer called Alan Adler. In these coffee machines, the coffee is steeped for 10–50 seconds and then forced through a filter by pressing the plunger through the tube. The final result is a delicious espresso-like coffee thanks to which the AeroPress has become one of the favorite brewers among coffee lovers.

And it’s all thanks to its inventor. AeroPress machines are simple to use, easy to clean and let you regulate the amount of pressure you put into your coffee brew so you can finish the whole process in less than a minute. Nowadays, people use their AeroPress however they prefer, and there are even competitions especially dedicated to this style of brewing.

How did the AeroPress come to be?

Adler is convinced that most of the time, inventions work when you think of a new way to improve something that already exists. Before the AeroPress, coffee brewing could take around five minutes to complete, and there was no way to actually make a drink as strong as espresso without an espresso machine. About home espresso machines, he says: “There’s no way to adjust the temperature, and it was that problem that led me to start designing my own coffee maker. Because I wanted the freedom to use whatever temperature tasted best, and I didn’t have that freedom with a home espresso machine or with an automatic drip machine.”

At the same time, Adler found out about the benefits of brewing coffee at lower temperatures and decided to create a machine that would allow him to make a single shot for himself at home. He realized a closed chamber that he could pressurize to speed up the process was what he needed, and so he started to work on a prototype in his store and that’s how the first concepts of the AeroPress were born.

A machine that inspired competitions

One thing that’s absolutely great and unique about AeroPress machines is their versatility. It allows you to experiment and create your own personalized ways of brewing your coffee. You can find many different videos on YouTube of people using non-traditional methods to reinvent their drink with the AeroPress. It has even inspired the World AeroPress Championship in which baristas get ready to innovate and try to make the perfect cup of coffee.

However, Adler never saw the competitions coming. In an interview with Sprudge, he explained “Not in my wildest fantasy dreams did I ever consider that (...) When I reflect on it now, the AeroPress really is a perfect thing for a competition because it’s so flexible. It encourages innovation. You couldn’t really have that with an ordinary espresso machine because it’s pretty set with how it works–but the AeroPress, there’s just an unlimited amount of ways you can use it.”

The original recipe

If we go back to the origins of the AeroPress though, we’ll find that Alan Adler experimented quite a lot before coming up with the final AeroPress machine and the recipe that worked best for him. It stands out for its simplicity. If you want to brew your coffee just like the inventor of the AeroPress, all you’ll need will be your vessel, your coffee, and water. First, follow these recommendations:

• The coffee should be of espresso-like grind size.
• Water should sit at 80℃–85℃ temperature. 80℃ for medium to dark roast, 85℃ for lighter roasts.

Then, for the less-than-one-minute brewing process, follow these steps:

1. Place the filter in the filter basket.
2. Screw the basket onto the AeroPress.
3. Sit the AeroPress on top of a decanter or a mug.
4. Put one scoop of coffee in. That equals about 15 grams of coffee.
5. Add water up to the #1 mark. It should be about 85–90ml.
6. Stir the coffee well for about ten seconds, making sure all grounds are wet.
7. Connect the plunger at the top of the vessel.
8. Press the plunger down for about 20–60 seconds, depending on the pressure. It’s recommended to simply put your hands on top of the plunger and let them push the plunger with their natural weight.
9. The result of this recipe is a coffee concentrate. Add hot water based on your taste preference.
10. To clean the brewer, remove the cap, throw away the coffee grounds, and wash your brewer.

Are you ready to brew your coffee Alan Adler’s style? AeroPress is very simple and fun to use! Besides, its practicality makes it the perfect coffee maker to take on a trip or quickly prepare a single shot. Our espresso ground coffee selection is great to try with AeroPress machines, so head to That Coffee Roasters’ online store and prepare to have the most amazing cup of coffee of your life!

Brew strong coffee with them.

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That Coffee Roasters

Phone Number: (305) 821-8811

2697 W. 76 Street, Hialeah, Florida 33016

Facebook: That Coffee Roasters

Instagram: thatcoffeeroasters

Colombian Coffee Facts and Traditions

Learn more about our heritage.

There’s coffee, and then there’s Colombian coffee, which is worldwide known for its diversity and rich flavors. Some people claim that it’s the best coffee in the world and, honestly, it’d be hard to argue against it. If there’s a culture that takes coffee seriously, it’s Colombian. In the Latin American country, coffee is always the perfect excuse to meet with friends and talk. It’s there in the mornings and late afternoons and at least 89 percent of Colombian people consider it the national beverage.

Coffee is never absent in at least 8 of 10 Colombian homes, and it’s always present in 86 percent of the stores. Colombia perceives around $3.5 billion per year thanks to coffee revenue, and most of this is thanks to the thousands of coffee farmers around the country. The Colombian coffee you drink every day comes from one of the 66.387 hectares worth of coffee crops.

And that’s where most of the Colombian coffee magic resides. Every day, coffee farmers follow a long tradition of producing top-notch quality coffee. Colombian coffee cherries are manually harvested when they’ve reached ideal ripening levels, and they’re immediately cleaned from the paste to make sure it won’t impregnate beans. This way, Colombian coffee differentiates itself from others because of its handcrafted tradition and culture. Every farmer works to pick just the very best of their crops.

Manual harvest results in better quality beans, and it employs a vast part of the Colombian rural population. Around 95 percent of Colombian families that work with coffee have their own farms, which is why coffee production is seen as a family activity by Colombian people (and by us as well!). Everyone participates, and the coffee traditions pass from one generation to the next, allowing consistency in quality.

In addition, Colombia has been putting extra efforts in developing social responsibility programs to support coffee farmers and give them the tools they need to improve their production and learn new ways to grow better coffee. They’re also focused on developing environmentally friendly solutions to face climate change, which is already affecting coffee crops all over the country.

One thing’s certain: for Colombian people, coffee means family, well being and tradition. It’s part of our identity and part of our pride. Black coffee helps us feel close to those we love the most, as well as it gives us vitality and energy to go through our days. It’s the perfect host for home and work. Coffee with milk evokes feelings associated with coziness and safety. It brings back the memories of the best moments shared with our families, and it simply makes us happy! At That Coffee Roasters, we have a special place in our hearts for all Colombian coffee, and we continue to carry on the traditions of our lands to offer coffee’s best virtues and qualities to you!

What's your favorite thing about Colombian coffee?

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That Coffee Roasters

Phone Number: (305) 821-8811

2697 W. 76 Street, Hialeah, Florida 33016

Facebook: That Coffee Roasters

Instagram: thatcoffeeroasters

Coffee Is Served by a Robot Barista at This Melbourne Coffee Shop

How much can a robot barista do?

Is your favorite barista an actual human being? Ugh, you’re so outdated. Non-human coffee shop workers are what’s in now, didn’t you get the fax? So pick your new one at your nearest café for only $9999,99 and name it something fun like... Francis. Seriously, jokes and saltiness aside, this is becoming a thing! There’s a robot barista serving coffee at a coffee shop in Melbourne, and it looks like a cool work of engineering. Let’s dig into it!

Once Alike  is the café and Rocky is the robot’s name that could potentially catapult Australia’s coffee culture into the future. It replicates a barista’s work in almost all accounts, grinding beans, tamping them, and pulling the espresso shots. Of course, you won’t get the human experience of actually talking to your barista… or getting your name written wrong, but it seems like you could enjoy a fantastic cup of coffee courtesy of Rocky.

In words of Liam Wilkie, one of the engineers behind the project, Rocky makes coffee as well as any barista. And the advantages? “When you’ve been in the industry so long, you realize the most important things are quality and consistency. People want their coffee the same every time they go back to a cafe that specializes in coffee. There are limitations to having a human behind the bar. We get stressed and emotional during busy periods. It’s not fun to make 1000 lattes on a Saturday – it’s really hard work,” he explains.

It makes sense. However, it’s only natural that baristas should also be worried that this becomes a threat to their jobs. They are still very superior in one thing though: Rocky takes roughly anywhere from 2 to 6 minutes to brew a cup of coffee, much slower than any experienced barista would take. Nevertheless, this is still an experimental project, so we can expect that robots in the future will be able to get every order right at a much more efficient amount of time.

Rocky is not the only one of his species

Previously, in January 2017, another robot barista also made the news at a coffee shop in San Francisco, called Café X. It was more like a robotic arm that operated an already-automated coffee maker, but it did mark the beginning of something that could potentially become a trend in the future.  

Are these things even sold commercially though? Well, this year they might. A company called Bubble Lab, based in China is working on a robot barista they showed at last year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. It’s also a robotic arm, and each one of them could cost $30,000 this 2018. Quite the investment, right? It still looks slow, so we’re not sure if it’s worth it for now.

But if we’ve learned something since the beginning of the 20th century, it’s that technology advances way faster than we realize. So it’d be no surprise to see a full-fledged, self-cleaning robot barista, which brews coffee as quickly and as efficiently as any human today, soon. Would you change the personalized factor of each cup of coffee for the robotic approach?

At That Coffee Roasters, we believe coffee is not only a beverage but also an experience that depends on the way each person sees and lives coffee. We’re not against technology but think about it as food and chefs. Every chef has their craft, their value. Baristas are the same, so we believe replacing them might not be as simple as it seems. What do you think? Let us know in the comments and keep joining us every Friday to talk more about innovations in the world of specialty coffee!

Could technology replace baristas?

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That Coffee Roasters

Phone Number: (305) 821-8811

2697 W. 76 Street, Hialeah, Florida 33016

Facebook: That Coffee Roasters

Instagram: thatcoffeeroasters

What Is Steeped Coffee and Is It Any Good?

Quick and easy.

The battle between coffee people and tea people has been going on for ages. Alright, it’s not so much like a battle, but we do tend to compare them, have our preferences and pick one over the other. It might be because how similar both beverages are and today we’re here to discuss yet another similarity: the brewing method they share. We’re talking about the traditional steeped coffee!

You’re probably used to brewing your cup of coffee every day in a drip coffee maker. Gone are the days when people prepared their morning cups of joe by boiling water in a pot and then pouring coffee in it, just like you would do with tea herbs. Now the closest thing would be doing it with a French press. But would there be any benefits in bringing this method back? And how should you do it to guarantee a great result?

Nordic coffee expert, Tim Wendelboe, says about this antique brewing method: “Steeped coffee produces a strikingly full-bodied coffee because you don’t filter off the coffee oils that add to its good mouthfeel and taste. Since the coffee is ground relatively coarse, the taste will be clean and clear.” Sounds like an experience worth trying, right? Here’s how to do it!

How is steeped coffee made?

The Nordic call it kokekaffe, and they claim simplicity is key in this brewing method. You won’t need more than a pot or a kettle. Grab 65 grams of coffee per liter of water (or more or less depending on your preferences). Then, simply follow these instructions:

1. Bring water to a boil.
2. Once boiling, remove from heat.
3. Add the coffee to the water, stirring to ensure all the grounds are wet.
4. Cover the container and let the coffee steep for 5 minutes.
5. Remove the cover and gently push the coffee down, so that it starts sinking.
6. Wait for approximately one minute before slowly pouring all the coffee into cups or a different container.
7. Like with a French press, letting the coffee sit in contact with the grounds for too long will lead to over-extraction and an excessively bitter and unbalanced cup of coffee.

You can enhance the qualities and virtues of steeped coffee. Try brewing naturally rich and full-bodied coffees, especially those from countries like Colombia or Brazil. But don’t worry, any kind coffee will taste great with this brewing method. Almost like a ritual, steeped coffee allows you to connect with the entire process of coffee brewing. This can be a great exercise to relax the first hour in the morning and fill you with energy.

Coffee bags

How do you feel about taking coffee even a step closer to how we prepare tea nowadays? That’s what coffee bags are for! There are now companies that are trying to offer single-serve coffee bags that you can steep to produce a cup of joe as quick and simple as possible. But how do they keep it fresh for so long? Each bag comes in a nitro-sealed package that removes the oxygen and eliminates the use of glue and staples. This halts the coffee’s aging process, keeping it fresh for months instead of days. You can actually pre-order samples on a kickstarter page.

So are you willing to try it? If you have a thing for oily, thick coffees, then this might be your soulmate brewing method! You can find the best Colombian ground coffee on That Coffee Roasters’ online shop to try steeped coffee and keep exploring the world of specialty coffee. Discover a different way to enjoy your daily dose of caffeine!

It's similar to tea bags.

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That Coffee Roasters

Phone Number: (305) 821-8811

2697 W. 76 Street, Hialeah, Florida 33016

Facebook: That Coffee Roasters

Instagram: thatcoffeeroasters