Café Manchado

Also manchado, leche manchada

Hot milk stained with a little coffee, the Spanish drink for those who want colour more than caffeine.

Espresso and milkServed hotFrom Spain

Volume
165ml5.6 US fl oz
Espresso
1shot
Caffeine
64mgderived, USDA FDC
Coffee to milk
1:10.0

The build

Watch it made, step by step
Mug, 200 ml. Layers in pouring order from the bottom, drawn by volume.
  1. Milk150 ml91%
  2. Espresso15 ml9%
Volume
165ml
Caffeine
64mg
Espresso
1shot

Scales every component together, so the ratio holds; caffeine scales with the coffee.

Mostly milk with a stain of coffee; the inverse of a cortado.

Caffeine

Derived
64mg

in a 165 ml café manchado

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

2
NameCountryHow it differs
lágrimaArgentinaArgentine equivalent.
latte macchiatoItalyItalian equivalent in a tall glass.

History

Popular account

Spanish bar vocabulary; no primary source documents its origin.

Spanish: 'stained'.

Popular account

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.

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