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The Coffee 100 · make it at home

Mexican café de olla with piloncillo and cinnamon

15 min · 4 mugs

The clay-pot coffee of Mexican kitchens and old cafés like Café de Tacuba: coffee simmered with raw cane sugar, cinnamon bark and orange peel, warm and gently spiced.

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The real one

You need

• 1 liter (4 cups) water
• 60 to 80 g (2 to 3 oz) piloncillo (or dark brown sugar), roughly chopped
• 1 stick Mexican cinnamon (canela, the soft, flaky Ceylon kind), about 10 cm (4 in)
• 2 strips orange peel, no pith
• 1 clove (optional), 1 star anise (optional)
• 50 g (1/2 cup) dark-roast coffee, ground medium-coarse

How to make it

1. Infuse (8 min): In a clay pot (an olla) or saucepan, bring the water, piloncillo, cinnamon, orange peel and spices to a boil, stirring until the sugar melts. Lower the heat and simmer 5 minutes.
2. Steep (5 min): Turn off the heat, stir in the coffee, cover and leave 5 minutes. Don't boil the coffee or it turns bitter.
3. Strain (1 min): Pour through a fine sieve lined with a paper towel or a cloth into a jug.
4. Serve: Hot, in clay mugs if you have them, with pan dulce: a concha is ideal.

Tips

• Taste for sweetness after straining: piloncillo varies. Add more while it's hot.
• Clay gives it its earthy taste; season a new olla by boiling water in it first.
• Leftovers make a great iced coffee with milk.

Chef Amazing's own home version, in our words; not any café's recipe.