The cortadito is the Cuban cortado, and it’s sweet on purpose. A Spanish cortado is espresso and warm milk. A cortadito starts with café cubano, strong espresso from a dark roast that’s sugared as it brews, and then gets its milk, often evaporated.
The Espumita
Everything depends on the espumita, the pale, sugary foam that sits on top of Cuban coffee. To make it, you catch the first few drops of espresso as they come out, the strongest part of the brew, and beat them hard into a mound of sugar. After a minute or two of stirring you have a thick, light-colored paste. The rest of the coffee goes in on top, and the paste rises into a creamy layer of foam.
At home the coffee usually comes from a stovetop cafetera, the moka pot. At Miami’s cafés it comes out of an espresso machine. You can order a cortadito without sugar, and nobody will refuse you, but the sugar is the Cuban part.
Evaporated Milk
Ask for a cortadito at a Miami window and you may get a question back about the milk. Evaporated milk, steamed until frothy, is the old-school choice. It’s thicker than fresh milk, with a cooked, faintly caramel flavor from the can, and it holds its own against all that sugar. Regulars often ask for it by name, cortadito con leche evaporada, because at some counters the default is whole milk. A few places slip in a little condensed milk as well, for something closer to dessert.
The ratio is loose. Some people want it half and half; others want about three parts coffee to one of milk. The window will make it the way you say.
At the Ventanita
Miami’s Cuban coffee lives at the ventanita, the walk-up window cut into the side of a café or bakery. You order standing on the sidewalk, usually with a pastelito or some buttered, pressed Cuban toast, and drink it right there. The cortadito is one of a handful of standard orders:
- Cafecito or café cubano: the sugared espresso on its own, in a tiny cup
- Colada: several shots of cafecito in a larger cup, with a stack of thimble-sized plastic cups for sharing
- Cortadito: cafecito cut with steamed milk
- Café con leche: a big cup of hot milk with Cuban coffee, the breakfast drink, made for dunking toast
The colada is the social one. Somebody buys it, and everyone nearby gets a thimble. The cortadito you keep for yourself.