Café Carioca
Also carioca de café
A deliberately weak Portuguese coffee made by passing water through spent grounds. Caffeine is well below the scaled figure.
EspressoServed hotFrom Portugal
- Volume
- 40ml1.4 US fl oz
- Espresso
- 1shot
- Caffeine
- 64mgderived, USDA FDC
- Glass
- Demitasse70 ml
The build
Watch it made, step by step- Espresso40 ml100%
- Volume
- 40ml
- Caffeine
- 64mg
- Espresso
- 1shot
Scales every component together, so the ratio holds; caffeine scales with the coffee.
Deliberately weak: a second pass through the same grounds, or a bica with extra water.
Caffeine
Derivedin a 40 ml café carioca
Derived per shot: USDA FoodData Central FDC 171891 (espresso, restaurant-prepared) lists 212 mg per 100 g; a standard 30 g shot is about 63.6 mg, times 1 shot(s). Real values vary with dose, roast and species (robusta roughly doubles it).
USDA FoodData Central record 171891 · read 2026-10-26
A derived figure: the reference food's caffeine per 100 g scaled to the coffee in this build. Real cups vary with the coffee, the dose and the shot.
Variants by country
1| Name | Country | How it differs |
|---|---|---|
| bica | Portugal | Full-strength original. |
History
Popular accountPortuguese café vocabulary; no primary source documents its origin.
Portugal; not the Rio drink.
Parts of this story are repeated widely but were not confirmed against a source this atlas accepts. They are kept as the story people tell, not as fact.
Related drinks
Portugal's everyday espresso, known as bica in Lisbon and cimbalino in Porto. Slightly longer than an Italian shot and taken with sugar.
Espresso Caffè Romano 30 ml · 64 mgAn espresso served with a twist of lemon. The lemon oil brightens the shot; the drink is more common in American cafés than in Rome.
Espresso Café Cubano 30 ml · 64 mgA Cuban espresso sweetened during extraction by whipping sugar with the first drops into a foam. Small, sweet and the base of colada and cortadito.
Espresso Decaf Espresso 30 ml · 64 mgAn espresso pulled from decaffeinated beans. Every milk and iced drink in this list can be ordered this way with its caffeine reduced to a few milligrams.
Espresso Espresso 30 ml · 64 mgA small, concentrated coffee brewed by forcing hot water through finely ground coffee under pressure. It is the base of most café milk drinks and is served in a small thick-walled cup.
Espresso Pocillo 30 ml · 64 mgA small cup of strong black coffee, from the Spanish word for the little cup itself. Common across Latin American Spanish.