How to Make Spanish Coffee! Spanish Latte with Condensed Milk, Milk, and Coffee - What is Café Bombón?

Introduction to Sweet Coffee Variations

As we all know, not everyone can accept the bitterness of coffee. Even for adults, an unpleasant taste is simply unpleasant. Therefore, to make coffee's bitterness less prominent and more palatable, people have added various ingredients that can balance the bitterness to their coffee.

In addition to the familiar milk and sugar, condensed milk is also a "regular player" in neutralizing coffee's bitterness. For example, Vietnam's cà phê đá (Vietnamese iced coffee) is a well-known coffee creation that adds large amounts of condensed milk to reduce bitterness. However, unfortunately, what FrontStreet Coffee wants to share today is not Vietnamese coffee, but a regional specialty coffee from Spain—Café Bombón.

What is Café Bombón?

When it comes to Spain and condensed milk coffee, I believe many friends will first think of the Spanish Latte developed by a certain chain brand. It's a flavored latte based on a regular latte with condensed milk added. Compared to regular lattes, Spanish Latte has abundant sweetness and richness due to the presence of condensed milk. However, we need to know that although Spanish Latte carries "Spanish" in its name, it has no connection to Spain whatsoever. On local café menus in Spain, we cannot find this coffee option. The reason is simple: Spain does not have Spanish Latte!

At this point, some friends might ask: Since Spain doesn't have Spanish Latte, why is this coffee using condensed milk called Spanish Latte?

Although Spain doesn't have Spanish Latte, cafés in Valencia, Spain's third-largest city, sell a regional limited coffee—Café Bombón. This coffee is made only from condensed milk and espresso, so if my guess is correct, the inspiration for Spanish Latte comes from this unique regional limited coffee. In other words, Spanish Latte is a derivative creation of Café Bombón.

The word "Bombón" in Spanish means both chocolate and candy. Therefore, we can understand Café Bombón as candy coffee or chocolate coffee. However, since Café Bombón is a product made only from condensed milk and espresso, with no chocolate elements in the entire coffee, FrontStreet Coffee would actually prefer to translate it as "candy coffee," after all, it does taste very sweet when you drink it. (It's a super-sweet candy combination)

How to Make Café Bombón

As mentioned earlier, this coffee is not popular throughout Spain. It's a regional specialty coffee, a limited product from Valencia, Spain's third-largest city (it is rumored that this coffee has a certain relationship with Vietnamese coffee). This means that outside the city of Valencia, it will be difficult to order Café Bombón in Spain. But don't worry, since we can't order it, why not make it ourselves? After all, obtaining the two ingredients is almost effortless, and making it couldn't be simpler!

In addition to espresso, we only need to prepare one portion of condensed milk. The ratio of condensed milk to espresso is 1:1. If our extracted espresso volume is 40ml, then the condensed milk should correspondingly be 40ml. However, friends who have tasted condensed milk alone will know that sweetened condensed milk is too sweet!!! Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee suggests we can appropriately reduce the proportion of condensed milk a bit, so this "candy" won't be cloyingly sweet.

Oh right! Besides these two ingredients, we should also prepare a transparent glass, with a capacity of about 100ml. (It must be slightly larger than the total volume, because espresso has crema, and FrontStreet Coffee learned this the hard way when using a smaller glass, which prevented the espresso from incorporating all at once)

Because condensed milk has a higher density, when placed at the bottom, poured espresso cannot blend with it without external force, creating a very distinct layering that looks quite beautiful! A transparent glass can showcase this beautiful scene, which is why FrontStreet Coffee recommends using a glass.

So, when our props and ingredients are ready, we can start making the coffee! First, pour 30ml of condensed milk into the glass.

Next, we begin extracting the espresso. FrontStreet Coffee used 19.8g of coffee grounds this time, with an extraction time of 31 seconds, yielding 39ml of liquid. After tamping the grounds and attaching the portafilter, remember to place the glass with condensed milk at the bottom to catch the espresso. This can reduce the loss of crema and allow the coffee to have a more complete expression in the cup.

After extraction is complete, we can move the coffee aside and prepare a small spoon for tasting.

If you don't have a spoon, other tools will work as well. The main purpose is for stirring! Otherwise, even if left for too long, the coffee won't blend due to the condensed milk's high density.

Tasting Experience

After stirring well, FrontStreet Coffee took a small sip, and unexpectedly, it was quite good!! The coffee wasn't as cloyingly sweet as imagined. The whiskey aroma and butter cookie flavors of the Nuoyang blend were very prominent. Besides this, there was a rich condensed milk fragrance, followed closely by the sweetness of condensed milk! The entire cup of coffee had a smooth and rich texture, very pleasant indeed.

However, for friends who don't like sweetness, this taste might still be somewhat sweet. So if friends don't particularly love sweet drinks but still want to try it, we can reduce some condensed milk on this basis. A coffee to condensed milk ratio of about 1:0.5 should be about right.

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