In April of 2023, I had a gentleman stop by the shop in the mall. It was right before my teen and I were to fly out to Miami to visit my kid’s best friend. I mentioned that we were going to Miami, and he told me I had to learn how to make a Cuban Espresso. This was before I got the espresso machine, and he told me that I didn’t need one to make a great Cuban.
My teen and I went to Miami, and visited the best friend, who happens to be Cuban American. We got to try some Miami Cuban Espresso, so I knew what it was supposed to taste like. What the best friend told us was that every family has their own recipe, so she couldn’t just give us one. She also only knew how to make one in an espresso machine. This was both good, and bad news. The good news was that there was some wiggle room to make a good drink. The bad news is that I had to figure out a recipe myself.
After going down the online Cuban Espresso rabbit hole, and watching James Hoffman’s video about moka pots, I did a lot of trial and error. One benefit of my AuDHD is that I’m great at research, which helped with the recipe. I practiced with Café Bustelo, but as a roaster, I couldn’t serve drinks made with that in my shop. I had the added project of developing a coffee blend that I could roast for these drinks too.
I was lucky enough to have volunteers to taste test my Cuban Espresso drinks. I couldn’t drink all of them, as I didn’t need that much caffeine. Once my recipe was set it went on the menu. I will not give out our recipe, because every family does it differently. I will explain the basics and show pictures of the different parts of the puzzle.
The three major parts to the puzzle is a good dark roast blend that contains both Arabica beans for flavor, and Robusta beans for caffeine. There is a science to the blend, but, in truth, it is completely up to the one drinking the Cuban. There are several bean offerings out there, in addition to Galaxy Girl Coffee’s Saturn Blend. Most of the offerings are pre-ground. We currently only offer whole bean.
The next part of the puzzle is brewing the coffee. My personal opinion is to start with the least expensive option of using the moka pot to make the ‘espresso’. I used James Hoffman’s recipe, which is here on YouTube. He is a great resource for coffee lovers that like to know the why in addition to the how of coffee. I’m not going to write out the recipe here, as he is much better at explaining it, and it is his recipe.
The last part of the puzzle is making the espumito (sugar foam) with the brewed coffee and some sugar. Espumito isn’t hard, The trick to making good espumito is not adding too much coffee to the sugar. You’ll whip the sugar and coffee together similarly to making a meringue by hand. You are adding air to the coffee sugar mixture. I used a spoon and a glass measuring cup.
After making the espumito, you’ll pour the rest of the brewed coffee into the measuring cup to get all of the espumito out of the cup. You can then pour the drink into an appropriately sized cup to drink. If you are making a Cafe con Leche (Cuban Latte), you may want to steam the milk, but you don’t have to.
The Cuban Espresso is a great drink. Just be warned. Between the robusta beans in the blend, and the espumito, the caffeine will hit your system faster than a normal espresso drink. It is a perfect pick-me-up if you need a shot of energy though, and don’t want to have an energy drink.