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How to order a coffee in any Spanish region
06/10/2021
PRACTICALLY every expat or regular visitor can remember their first words in Spanish. They may not be the first you were taught, or learned from a self-teaching course pack, but the ones that most stuck in your head, or the first sentence you were able to pronounce without hesitating.
Often, it would have been something completely pointless – no doubt at least one vegetarian will tell you their first words were, Una hamburguesa, por favor ('A hamburger, please'), or a person who never drives, ¿Se puede aparcar aquí? ('Can you park here?')
Most will remember, forever, a minimum of one occasion where their mispronunciation or incorrect vocabulary raised a laugh and left them red-faced, but that's good: Whenever anyone starts to learn a language, their biggest fear is making themselves look silly, but given that absolutely everyone who is fluent in a non-native tongue has, indeed, made themselves look silly in the past, you can reassure those new to it, and tell them it will always be a quirky anecdote they can dine out on later and, for that reason, they should be grateful for the opportunity of creating them for another day in the future.
In practice, most expats will probably say their first words in Spanish were much more run-of-the-mill. Me llamo X, being one ('My name is X', or literally, 'I call myself X') or Vivo en [insert location], to reveal where they live. Quite often, the first time you spoke in public would be when you order a drink from a café to chill out after the journey to Spain: Una cerveza, por favor ('A beer, please'), or a café con leche ('coffee with milk').
Later, you might have found out there were other types of coffee you preferred, such as a café solo (similar to an espresso), a cortado (like a macchiato, or short cup half-and-half very strong filter coffee and steamed milk).
But one thing most of us would agree on is that, however alien the language once sounded to you, there was a time when all of us were confident that, if nothing else, and even if we never drink it, we were capable of ordering a coffee in Spain.
Until we started travelling around the country and realising we probably couldn't.
Who knew that a café bombón (short cup with half filter coffee and half condensed milk) would be a café biberón in Catalunya? What do you say when you're in the Comunidad Valenciana and they ask you if you want it del tiempo?
For info, that one is a coffee like any other, the one you've just ordered, but with a glass full of ice on the side. Pour your drink into it, and your caffeine fix becomes a summer refresher.
Or you can just say, sí, and take the glass of ice and then use it for the bottle of water in your handbag.
Andalucía
In this southern coastal region, where a caña (half-pint or third-of-a-litre glass of beer) is actually a tubo (because it tends to come in a tube-shaped glass), and where some bars still, even today, give you a free tapa or saucer-sized snack with your drink – usually unsolicited, making it twice as welcome – the coffee vocabulary culture has evolved to such an extend it needs its own dictionary.
For example, if you request a café con leche, you'll probably be asked, “¿Un mitad?” ('A half?')
This is particularly the case in the province of Málaga, and is considered logical there, since a café con leche is typically half a cup of filter coffee and half a cup of steamed milk.
Here, also, it's common to specify the exact dimensions of the café con leche – largo means lots of coffee and not much milk, manchado means very little coffee with lots of milk (it means the same as macchiato in Italian, or 'stained', but is the opposite way around: Here, you're asking for the milk to be 'stained' with coffee), or corto, where the coffee-milk balance leans more towards the the latter than the former.
This works elsewhere in the country, too – corto de café or largo de café means, as you'd expect, 'short on the coffee' or 'long on the coffee'.
Lots of new expats or non-regular holidaymakers are a bit shocked by the temperature of coffee in Spain, although for long-term dwellers, it's a much more sensible method: When you get it, it'll be just cool enough to drink immediately, and within minutes, it's lukewarm. Piping hot is thought to be a waste of time, because you have to wait until it cools down before you can start on it. But if you prefer yours at boiling point, ask for it muy caliente ('very hot').
Still in Andalucía, you might hear bar customers ordering a sombra ('shadow') or a nube ('cloud'). The former will probably suit you if you're used to chains like Starbucks and tend to order a latte – it's just a finger of coffee with the rest being steamed milk – although if you prefer your latte to be much closer to the literal translation of the word (it just means 'milk', in Italian), a nube is nearly all steamed milk with just a few drops of coffee.
Aragón
In this land-locked north-eastern region, which stretches from the Pyrénées to about halfway down the mainland, a high percentage of your coffees will probably be ordered in tiny, cosy bars in tiny, cosy villages. It's one of Spain's most rural regions, and over 50% of its inhabitants live in municipalities with 200 or fewer residents. To that end, even occasional tourists get recognised – you can pop there for a long weekend about once every two or three years, and chances are, the café staff will remember exactly how you take your cup, how many sugars or saccharines, and have it waiting for you on the table as you walk in.
Coffee lingo is pretty straightforward in Aragón, except this is probably the only region you'll be able to order a quemadillo and be understood.
The Aragonese are quite fond of chucking a dash of alcohol into their coffees, and one common example is the quemadillo, made with coffee, rum and milk.
Balearic Islands
This Mediterranean archipelago is fond of its carajillos. And a carajillo is something that's more or less universally understood in Spain – a short-ish, black coffee with a dollop of alcohol. You'll normally be asked if you want a carajillo de whisky, a carajillo de ron (rum), a carajillo de coñac (brandy), but if you're tempted and not otherwise fond of your caffeinated beverages without milk, try a carajillo de Baileys. It's a small, creamy, sweet, alcoholic coffee fix that goes down beautifully after a meal, especially if you don't have room for dessert.
In Ibiza, ordering a café caleta gets you a carajillo of rum and brandy, flavoured with orange and lemon peel (you can ask for it with milk in it. It doesn't usually contain milk, but there's no reason why it shouldn't if you prefer).
In Mallorca, a café rebentó is a carajillo with 'native' Balearic rum.
Just to be funny, the 'coffee dictionary' has different entries depending upon which island you're visiting or living on. But one rather delectable variety is understood on all of them: The leche y leche ('milk and milk'). It's filter coffee with 'mainstream' milk and condensed milk, meaning it's thick, creamy and already sweetened.
In Tenerife, a café con leche with added condensed milk is a barraquito, and curiously, in Lanzarote, it's common to order a nunca mais. This is actually Portuguese for 'never again', but on this beautiful island, it merely means a double ration.
Cantabria
Another region where most 'standard' coffees and their names are understood, when you visit this very green, rugged and attractive northern coastal territory (pack a coat and umbrella between September and June; it's colder here than on the Costas), whatever you order will come in a glass.
For a sweet fix with it, check out Cantabria's bespoke confectionery – sobaos, or sticky spongecake fingers; corbatas, or thin-crust pastry strips coated in sugar, and quesadillas, or egg-custard tart.
Castilla y León
Rather than different names for different types of coffee that nowhere else in the country has ever heard of, it's the 'experience' of coffee-drinking that counts in this centre-northern, very rural (and very chilly in winter) region. If you hear someone ordering a café completo, it comes with a chaser of brandy and even a cigar.
Castilla-La Mancha
The central plains that stretch from just south and just north-east of Madrid down to the border of Andalucía, made famous by the 17th-century literary legend Don Quijote and his long-suffering, fat sidekick Sancho Pancha – and also as the birthplace of cult film director Pedro Almodóvar – is almost impossible not to have passed through if you ever travel to Madrid from anywhere else in Spain. Even by air, since the flight is so short from other parts of the mainland that you can clearly see the roads and countryside from the plane window for most of the journey.
And it has its own, unique type of coffee which, if you're not planning on driving, you need to try before you leave: The resolí, a bespoke mulled-liqueur-coffee-type of beverage in a glass.
Best hand-made, it's also sold in bottles, but traditionally it's mixed to order so you can decide how much coffee you want in it.
Coffee, a dash of brandy, sugar, a drop of the regional white rum or aguardiente de la sierra, dried orange peel, and cinnamon – a delectable pick-me-up at any time of day.
You can probably ask for it with milk. You might get a funny look from the bartender, but as an expat, you can always say that in your culture it's bad luck to drink brandy/coffee/anything with orange peel without milk in it, as it's considered to be an insult to the Milkmaid Goddess/Divine Cow/Deity of Dairy Buckets.
They probably won't believe you, but it'll explain away the perceived eccentricity of adding this – for some – essential ingredient; in fact, you'll probably have created yourself a scenario where you could casually order a Coca-Cola milkshake to go with it and the staff will just nod knowingly.
Or just order a glass of milk on the side for an imaginary friend, and mix them when nobody's looking.
Catalunya
As well as the café bombón being known as a café biberón (literally, a 'baby-bottle coffee'), you might hear bar customers ordering a tallat. This is also likely in the Comunidad Valenciana – it just means cortado in catalán and in valenciano.
In both regions, though, they'll still understand you if you ask for a cortado, in Castilian Spanish, since everyone speaks the national language, even if their preferred, or native tongue is catalán or valenciano.
For an alcohol hit, ask for a trifásico when in Catalunya, and you'll get a café con leche with brandy in it.
Or for a divinely-sweet and creamy version, ask for a café catalán, and you'll get a coffee made with crema catalana.
Crema catalana is normally a desert – it's a type of chilled, thick custard (and never gets a skin on it), mildly flavoured with lemon and cinnamon, and with caramelised sugar caked on top – typically, you'll see restaurateurs blow-torching the coating just as they bring it to your table.
Comunidad Valenciana
These three provinces along the Mediterranean seaboard – Castellón, Valencia and Alicante – are among the most attractive, modern, populated and cosmopolitan in the country; it's a region where you cannot assume anyone's nationality based upon their name, what they look like, or even what language you hear them speaking in. Even in a small, rural town, you'll probably hear a string of languages in conversations on the street on a short daily walk to the shops. It's also the region with the most blue-flagged beaches, and home to Spain's third-largest city (Valencia), the birthplace of paella, the source of most oranges you find in most supermarkets anywhere in Europe, and the historic stamping ground of the infamous and ruthless Borgia dynasty (originally, and here, known as the Borjas).
And as well as a cortado also being a tallat and the café del tiempo being a glass of ice on the side (occasionally even with the ice-cubes made from coffee, or with a slice of lemon or a cinnamon stick), it's the home of the summer treat known as blanco y negro, or blanc i negre.
If you've ever been to Spain in the hottest months of the year, you may have ordered a granizado, being a 'slush-puppy' or crushed ice with flavouring, most often lemon. There's also a coffee-flavoured granizado and, served with meringue-flavoured milk or with a dollop of vanilla ice-cream on top, is known as a 'black and white'.
Other than coffee, the Comunidad Valenciana is the ideal place to try out horchata (written as orxata in the regional language) – a milky drink made from tiger-nut juice and sugar, which tastes like a combination of coconut and almond and, although there's no dairy in it, has the consistency of a lightweight milkshake.
Also try out Agua de Valencia – basically, Buck's Fizz, but a more sophisticated, fruity and refreshing version, made from cava and the juice of local oranges, and served very chilled.
Galicia
Like much of mainland Spain's northern strip, Galicia – along with Cantabria, Asturias, Navarra and the Basque Country – will blow away every stereotype you've ever believed about what this nation looks like.
Forget the palm trees, cacti and subtropical vegetation; these regions have been compared, in appearance, with Ireland, Scotland, Switzerland and central France. They're very grassy and emerald-green, with wood-beamed chalets and undulating hills, cows and sheep grazing, and a mild climate – summers are still warm, but without the stickiness of the south and east coasts, and winters can be quite chilly, but for that reason, homes and hotels are built with central heating as standard.
These regions also have strong Celtic roots, sharing their ancient culture with that of Ireland, Scotland, Cornwall and the north of Portugal; traditional music, which influences modern pop, and traditional costume, bear this out.
So it's no surprise that if you head to a bar in Galicia, you'll hear customers ordering a celta.
Not to be confused with the football club Celta de Vigo ('Vigo Celtic'), this is a coffee with brown sugar, a dash of orujo (a very strong rum-like spirit), coffee beans and a slice of lemon.
Another regular in this far north-western region, bordered on three sides by the sea, is the café con gotas (literally, 'coffee with drops'), which is an espresso coffee with a few drops of orujo.
Madrid
In the wider Madrid region, as well as in the city itself, rather like other huge metropolitan areas such as Barcelona and Valencia, you can find practically every type of coffee in existence, as well as at least one branch of Starbucks with all the usual varieties.
Also in Madrid, bartenders will understand what you mean when you ask for pretty much all the 'standard' coffee types; it doesn't have its own, quirky vocabulary for them.
But it does have a couple of extra descriptions. If you ask for a mediana, being 'medium', this refers to the cup size, and is typically taken mid-morning.
Similar to in Andalucía, if you ask for a café mitad y mitad ('half-and-half coffee') you'll get a coffee with half the milk hot and half the milk cold, straight out of the carton – an ideal solution for those who cannot make up their mind when faced with the oft-asked, “do you want the milk hot or cold?”
Murcia
On the south-east coast, one of the warmest parts of the mainland – winter holidays on La Manga, the strip that borders the Mar Menor sea on three sides, are popular, since the balmy waters of this almost-lake are said to be a real tonic for achy joints – and with established wine regions, a long Naval and Roman history (check out Cartagena's Navy Museum and the spectacular Roman amphitheatre), Murcia is also a golfer's paradise, and typically much less tourist-heavy than many of the other coastal provinces.
For this reason, it's becoming increasingly sought-after by expats, especially those seeking to retire in the sun, and as a holiday home destination.
Also, oddly, it has a bespoke style of coffee known as an 'Asiatic'.
If you order a café asiático, you'll get a delectable, and very hot cup of strong filter coffee with condensed milk, ground cinnamon, brandy, and a liqueur known as 43 (cuarenta y tres), which is bright-yellow in colour and has a very sweet, vanilla-like flavour.
Indeed, if sweet liqueur is your cup of tea, you can order a 43 from almost any bar in Spain on its own.
Murcia is also the place to find a café belmonte, which is coffee, condensed milk and brandy.
Basque Country
This far-northern central-European-looking region, with its verdant hills, stunning beaches and heavy concentration of Michelin-starred chefs, is home to San Sebastián Film Festival and the futuristic Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao.
It's also home to a regional language that has had linguists scratching their heads for generations – euskera is said to be notoriously hard to learn, nearly impossible for a non-native speaker, and has no known roots to any other tongue spoken on earth.
That said, some studies point to its being an evolution of the ancient Iberian language, or the original prehistoric dialect of the cave-dwellers.
If that's the case, it would make euskera the oldest known language in current use on the planet.
When practising your euskera pronunciation, try ordering an ebaki from your nearest bar – an espresso coffee with a small amount of milk in it.
Otherwise, like everywhere else in Spain with a second, co-official language, Castilian Spanish is fully understood and spoken, so you can still get your usual café con leche, café solo and cortado.
Another few coffee pointers
If the bartender asks if you want crema, they mean the froth from the steamed milk piled on top, not cream. Nata is cream, and is the squirty Chantilly-type, not liquid cream in place of milk.
Ordering your coffee de sobre means it comes as the instant version in a sachet, with a cup of hot milk to pour it into; this is most likely how it'll come if you order decaf (descafeinado), although if you want to stipulate it should be decaffeinated from the machine, ask for it descafeinado de máquina.
One type that hasn't been mentioned here yet and is, again, universal, is the café americano – black coffee, full-sized rather than espresso-sized, but not as strong as the latter, since it is made partly with espresso and partly with hot water.
Soya milk and similar is slow to catch on in Spain at present. It's almost guaranteed in vegetarian or vegan restaurants, and is more likely in big cities, large and modern bars, or those run by foreign residents; if you're concerned, though, you might be better off bringing your own and just asking for a solo or an americano to mix with it.
Cappuccino, spelled as capuchino in Spanish, is not widely available, but many bars and cafés will make it on demand, so it's worth a try. The more novelty coffee shops, which are often bakeries and cake shops, or ice-cream parlours, too, will probably make it with Chantilly cream on top instead of milk froth.
A café irlandés is the same as elsewhere in the world – black coffee, whisky, and Chantilly cream – and if you have a sweet tooth and find a bar selling café vienés, or Viennese coffee, you're in luck: Condensed milk in the bottom, black coffee on top, and a pile of squirty cream to finish it off.
Ice-cream parlours often serve up black coffee with a scoop of the flavour of your choice in it – some areas call these a café nacional, but most call it a café helado (ice-cream coffee).
Finally, coffee from bars in Spain tends to be quite strong. Once you get used to it, you'll probably find everywhere else you travel in the world serves up a fairly insipid version, by contrast. But if you know you'll never get used to it, ask for yours muy flojo or bastante flojo ('very weak' or 'quite weak') or simply corto de café (short on the coffee).
Related Topics
PRACTICALLY every expat or regular visitor can remember their first words in Spanish. They may not be the first you were taught, or learned from a self-teaching course pack, but the ones that most stuck in your head, or the first sentence you were able to pronounce without hesitating.
Often, it would have been something completely pointless – no doubt at least one vegetarian will tell you their first words were, Una hamburguesa, por favor ('A hamburger, please'), or a person who never drives, ¿Se puede aparcar aquí? ('Can you park here?')
Most will remember, forever, a minimum of one occasion where their mispronunciation or incorrect vocabulary raised a laugh and left them red-faced, but that's good: Whenever anyone starts to learn a language, their biggest fear is making themselves look silly, but given that absolutely everyone who is fluent in a non-native tongue has, indeed, made themselves look silly in the past, you can reassure those new to it, and tell them it will always be a quirky anecdote they can dine out on later and, for that reason, they should be grateful for the opportunity of creating them for another day in the future.
In practice, most expats will probably say their first words in Spanish were much more run-of-the-mill. Me llamo X, being one ('My name is X', or literally, 'I call myself X') or Vivo en [insert location], to reveal where they live. Quite often, the first time you spoke in public would be when you order a drink from a café to chill out after the journey to Spain: Una cerveza, por favor ('A beer, please'), or a café con leche ('coffee with milk').
Later, you might have found out there were other types of coffee you preferred, such as a café solo (similar to an espresso), a cortado (like a macchiato, or short cup half-and-half very strong filter coffee and steamed milk).
But one thing most of us would agree on is that, however alien the language once sounded to you, there was a time when all of us were confident that, if nothing else, and even if we never drink it, we were capable of ordering a coffee in Spain.
Until we started travelling around the country and realising we probably couldn't.
Who knew that a café bombón (short cup with half filter coffee and half condensed milk) would be a café biberón in Catalunya? What do you say when you're in the Comunidad Valenciana and they ask you if you want it del tiempo?
For info, that one is a coffee like any other, the one you've just ordered, but with a glass full of ice on the side. Pour your drink into it, and your caffeine fix becomes a summer refresher.
Or you can just say, sí, and take the glass of ice and then use it for the bottle of water in your handbag.
Andalucía
In this southern coastal region, where a caña (half-pint or third-of-a-litre glass of beer) is actually a tubo (because it tends to come in a tube-shaped glass), and where some bars still, even today, give you a free tapa or saucer-sized snack with your drink – usually unsolicited, making it twice as welcome – the coffee vocabulary culture has evolved to such an extend it needs its own dictionary.
For example, if you request a café con leche, you'll probably be asked, “¿Un mitad?” ('A half?')
This is particularly the case in the province of Málaga, and is considered logical there, since a café con leche is typically half a cup of filter coffee and half a cup of steamed milk.
Here, also, it's common to specify the exact dimensions of the café con leche – largo means lots of coffee and not much milk, manchado means very little coffee with lots of milk (it means the same as macchiato in Italian, or 'stained', but is the opposite way around: Here, you're asking for the milk to be 'stained' with coffee), or corto, where the coffee-milk balance leans more towards the the latter than the former.
This works elsewhere in the country, too – corto de café or largo de café means, as you'd expect, 'short on the coffee' or 'long on the coffee'.
Lots of new expats or non-regular holidaymakers are a bit shocked by the temperature of coffee in Spain, although for long-term dwellers, it's a much more sensible method: When you get it, it'll be just cool enough to drink immediately, and within minutes, it's lukewarm. Piping hot is thought to be a waste of time, because you have to wait until it cools down before you can start on it. But if you prefer yours at boiling point, ask for it muy caliente ('very hot').
Still in Andalucía, you might hear bar customers ordering a sombra ('shadow') or a nube ('cloud'). The former will probably suit you if you're used to chains like Starbucks and tend to order a latte – it's just a finger of coffee with the rest being steamed milk – although if you prefer your latte to be much closer to the literal translation of the word (it just means 'milk', in Italian), a nube is nearly all steamed milk with just a few drops of coffee.
Aragón
In this land-locked north-eastern region, which stretches from the Pyrénées to about halfway down the mainland, a high percentage of your coffees will probably be ordered in tiny, cosy bars in tiny, cosy villages. It's one of Spain's most rural regions, and over 50% of its inhabitants live in municipalities with 200 or fewer residents. To that end, even occasional tourists get recognised – you can pop there for a long weekend about once every two or three years, and chances are, the café staff will remember exactly how you take your cup, how many sugars or saccharines, and have it waiting for you on the table as you walk in.
Coffee lingo is pretty straightforward in Aragón, except this is probably the only region you'll be able to order a quemadillo and be understood.
The Aragonese are quite fond of chucking a dash of alcohol into their coffees, and one common example is the quemadillo, made with coffee, rum and milk.
Balearic Islands
This Mediterranean archipelago is fond of its carajillos. And a carajillo is something that's more or less universally understood in Spain – a short-ish, black coffee with a dollop of alcohol. You'll normally be asked if you want a carajillo de whisky, a carajillo de ron (rum), a carajillo de coñac (brandy), but if you're tempted and not otherwise fond of your caffeinated beverages without milk, try a carajillo de Baileys. It's a small, creamy, sweet, alcoholic coffee fix that goes down beautifully after a meal, especially if you don't have room for dessert.
In Ibiza, ordering a café caleta gets you a carajillo of rum and brandy, flavoured with orange and lemon peel (you can ask for it with milk in it. It doesn't usually contain milk, but there's no reason why it shouldn't if you prefer).
In Mallorca, a café rebentó is a carajillo with 'native' Balearic rum.
Just to be funny, the 'coffee dictionary' has different entries depending upon which island you're visiting or living on. But one rather delectable variety is understood on all of them: The leche y leche ('milk and milk'). It's filter coffee with 'mainstream' milk and condensed milk, meaning it's thick, creamy and already sweetened.
In Tenerife, a café con leche with added condensed milk is a barraquito, and curiously, in Lanzarote, it's common to order a nunca mais. This is actually Portuguese for 'never again', but on this beautiful island, it merely means a double ration.
Cantabria
Another region where most 'standard' coffees and their names are understood, when you visit this very green, rugged and attractive northern coastal territory (pack a coat and umbrella between September and June; it's colder here than on the Costas), whatever you order will come in a glass.
For a sweet fix with it, check out Cantabria's bespoke confectionery – sobaos, or sticky spongecake fingers; corbatas, or thin-crust pastry strips coated in sugar, and quesadillas, or egg-custard tart.
Castilla y León
Rather than different names for different types of coffee that nowhere else in the country has ever heard of, it's the 'experience' of coffee-drinking that counts in this centre-northern, very rural (and very chilly in winter) region. If you hear someone ordering a café completo, it comes with a chaser of brandy and even a cigar.
Castilla-La Mancha
The central plains that stretch from just south and just north-east of Madrid down to the border of Andalucía, made famous by the 17th-century literary legend Don Quijote and his long-suffering, fat sidekick Sancho Pancha – and also as the birthplace of cult film director Pedro Almodóvar – is almost impossible not to have passed through if you ever travel to Madrid from anywhere else in Spain. Even by air, since the flight is so short from other parts of the mainland that you can clearly see the roads and countryside from the plane window for most of the journey.
And it has its own, unique type of coffee which, if you're not planning on driving, you need to try before you leave: The resolí, a bespoke mulled-liqueur-coffee-type of beverage in a glass.
Best hand-made, it's also sold in bottles, but traditionally it's mixed to order so you can decide how much coffee you want in it.
Coffee, a dash of brandy, sugar, a drop of the regional white rum or aguardiente de la sierra, dried orange peel, and cinnamon – a delectable pick-me-up at any time of day.
You can probably ask for it with milk. You might get a funny look from the bartender, but as an expat, you can always say that in your culture it's bad luck to drink brandy/coffee/anything with orange peel without milk in it, as it's considered to be an insult to the Milkmaid Goddess/Divine Cow/Deity of Dairy Buckets.
They probably won't believe you, but it'll explain away the perceived eccentricity of adding this – for some – essential ingredient; in fact, you'll probably have created yourself a scenario where you could casually order a Coca-Cola milkshake to go with it and the staff will just nod knowingly.
Or just order a glass of milk on the side for an imaginary friend, and mix them when nobody's looking.
Catalunya
As well as the café bombón being known as a café biberón (literally, a 'baby-bottle coffee'), you might hear bar customers ordering a tallat. This is also likely in the Comunidad Valenciana – it just means cortado in catalán and in valenciano.
In both regions, though, they'll still understand you if you ask for a cortado, in Castilian Spanish, since everyone speaks the national language, even if their preferred, or native tongue is catalán or valenciano.
For an alcohol hit, ask for a trifásico when in Catalunya, and you'll get a café con leche with brandy in it.
Or for a divinely-sweet and creamy version, ask for a café catalán, and you'll get a coffee made with crema catalana.
Crema catalana is normally a desert – it's a type of chilled, thick custard (and never gets a skin on it), mildly flavoured with lemon and cinnamon, and with caramelised sugar caked on top – typically, you'll see restaurateurs blow-torching the coating just as they bring it to your table.
Comunidad Valenciana
These three provinces along the Mediterranean seaboard – Castellón, Valencia and Alicante – are among the most attractive, modern, populated and cosmopolitan in the country; it's a region where you cannot assume anyone's nationality based upon their name, what they look like, or even what language you hear them speaking in. Even in a small, rural town, you'll probably hear a string of languages in conversations on the street on a short daily walk to the shops. It's also the region with the most blue-flagged beaches, and home to Spain's third-largest city (Valencia), the birthplace of paella, the source of most oranges you find in most supermarkets anywhere in Europe, and the historic stamping ground of the infamous and ruthless Borgia dynasty (originally, and here, known as the Borjas).
And as well as a cortado also being a tallat and the café del tiempo being a glass of ice on the side (occasionally even with the ice-cubes made from coffee, or with a slice of lemon or a cinnamon stick), it's the home of the summer treat known as blanco y negro, or blanc i negre.
If you've ever been to Spain in the hottest months of the year, you may have ordered a granizado, being a 'slush-puppy' or crushed ice with flavouring, most often lemon. There's also a coffee-flavoured granizado and, served with meringue-flavoured milk or with a dollop of vanilla ice-cream on top, is known as a 'black and white'.
Other than coffee, the Comunidad Valenciana is the ideal place to try out horchata (written as orxata in the regional language) – a milky drink made from tiger-nut juice and sugar, which tastes like a combination of coconut and almond and, although there's no dairy in it, has the consistency of a lightweight milkshake.
Also try out Agua de Valencia – basically, Buck's Fizz, but a more sophisticated, fruity and refreshing version, made from cava and the juice of local oranges, and served very chilled.
Galicia
Like much of mainland Spain's northern strip, Galicia – along with Cantabria, Asturias, Navarra and the Basque Country – will blow away every stereotype you've ever believed about what this nation looks like.
Forget the palm trees, cacti and subtropical vegetation; these regions have been compared, in appearance, with Ireland, Scotland, Switzerland and central France. They're very grassy and emerald-green, with wood-beamed chalets and undulating hills, cows and sheep grazing, and a mild climate – summers are still warm, but without the stickiness of the south and east coasts, and winters can be quite chilly, but for that reason, homes and hotels are built with central heating as standard.
These regions also have strong Celtic roots, sharing their ancient culture with that of Ireland, Scotland, Cornwall and the north of Portugal; traditional music, which influences modern pop, and traditional costume, bear this out.
So it's no surprise that if you head to a bar in Galicia, you'll hear customers ordering a celta.
Not to be confused with the football club Celta de Vigo ('Vigo Celtic'), this is a coffee with brown sugar, a dash of orujo (a very strong rum-like spirit), coffee beans and a slice of lemon.
Another regular in this far north-western region, bordered on three sides by the sea, is the café con gotas (literally, 'coffee with drops'), which is an espresso coffee with a few drops of orujo.
Madrid
In the wider Madrid region, as well as in the city itself, rather like other huge metropolitan areas such as Barcelona and Valencia, you can find practically every type of coffee in existence, as well as at least one branch of Starbucks with all the usual varieties.
Also in Madrid, bartenders will understand what you mean when you ask for pretty much all the 'standard' coffee types; it doesn't have its own, quirky vocabulary for them.
But it does have a couple of extra descriptions. If you ask for a mediana, being 'medium', this refers to the cup size, and is typically taken mid-morning.
Similar to in Andalucía, if you ask for a café mitad y mitad ('half-and-half coffee') you'll get a coffee with half the milk hot and half the milk cold, straight out of the carton – an ideal solution for those who cannot make up their mind when faced with the oft-asked, “do you want the milk hot or cold?”
Murcia
On the south-east coast, one of the warmest parts of the mainland – winter holidays on La Manga, the strip that borders the Mar Menor sea on three sides, are popular, since the balmy waters of this almost-lake are said to be a real tonic for achy joints – and with established wine regions, a long Naval and Roman history (check out Cartagena's Navy Museum and the spectacular Roman amphitheatre), Murcia is also a golfer's paradise, and typically much less tourist-heavy than many of the other coastal provinces.
For this reason, it's becoming increasingly sought-after by expats, especially those seeking to retire in the sun, and as a holiday home destination.
Also, oddly, it has a bespoke style of coffee known as an 'Asiatic'.
If you order a café asiático, you'll get a delectable, and very hot cup of strong filter coffee with condensed milk, ground cinnamon, brandy, and a liqueur known as 43 (cuarenta y tres), which is bright-yellow in colour and has a very sweet, vanilla-like flavour.
Indeed, if sweet liqueur is your cup of tea, you can order a 43 from almost any bar in Spain on its own.
Murcia is also the place to find a café belmonte, which is coffee, condensed milk and brandy.
Basque Country
This far-northern central-European-looking region, with its verdant hills, stunning beaches and heavy concentration of Michelin-starred chefs, is home to San Sebastián Film Festival and the futuristic Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao.
It's also home to a regional language that has had linguists scratching their heads for generations – euskera is said to be notoriously hard to learn, nearly impossible for a non-native speaker, and has no known roots to any other tongue spoken on earth.
That said, some studies point to its being an evolution of the ancient Iberian language, or the original prehistoric dialect of the cave-dwellers.
If that's the case, it would make euskera the oldest known language in current use on the planet.
When practising your euskera pronunciation, try ordering an ebaki from your nearest bar – an espresso coffee with a small amount of milk in it.
Otherwise, like everywhere else in Spain with a second, co-official language, Castilian Spanish is fully understood and spoken, so you can still get your usual café con leche, café solo and cortado.
Another few coffee pointers
If the bartender asks if you want crema, they mean the froth from the steamed milk piled on top, not cream. Nata is cream, and is the squirty Chantilly-type, not liquid cream in place of milk.
Ordering your coffee de sobre means it comes as the instant version in a sachet, with a cup of hot milk to pour it into; this is most likely how it'll come if you order decaf (descafeinado), although if you want to stipulate it should be decaffeinated from the machine, ask for it descafeinado de máquina.
One type that hasn't been mentioned here yet and is, again, universal, is the café americano – black coffee, full-sized rather than espresso-sized, but not as strong as the latter, since it is made partly with espresso and partly with hot water.
Soya milk and similar is slow to catch on in Spain at present. It's almost guaranteed in vegetarian or vegan restaurants, and is more likely in big cities, large and modern bars, or those run by foreign residents; if you're concerned, though, you might be better off bringing your own and just asking for a solo or an americano to mix with it.
Cappuccino, spelled as capuchino in Spanish, is not widely available, but many bars and cafés will make it on demand, so it's worth a try. The more novelty coffee shops, which are often bakeries and cake shops, or ice-cream parlours, too, will probably make it with Chantilly cream on top instead of milk froth.
A café irlandés is the same as elsewhere in the world – black coffee, whisky, and Chantilly cream – and if you have a sweet tooth and find a bar selling café vienés, or Viennese coffee, you're in luck: Condensed milk in the bottom, black coffee on top, and a pile of squirty cream to finish it off.
Ice-cream parlours often serve up black coffee with a scoop of the flavour of your choice in it – some areas call these a café nacional, but most call it a café helado (ice-cream coffee).
Finally, coffee from bars in Spain tends to be quite strong. Once you get used to it, you'll probably find everywhere else you travel in the world serves up a fairly insipid version, by contrast. But if you know you'll never get used to it, ask for yours muy flojo or bastante flojo ('very weak' or 'quite weak') or simply corto de café (short on the coffee).
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