Barraquito and zaperoco: Canary coffee, and what to order at the bar
Sit down at a café in Tenerife and sooner or later you'll spot it on the next table: a small glass with five layers, white at the bottom, milk foam on top, finished with cinnamon and lemon peel. This is the barraquito, the islands' best-known coffee speciality. In this article we show you what goes into it, why the same name can get you something different depending on the island, where the name comes from, and where coffee grows in the Canary Islands.
If you're only looking for the word alongside other Canarian expressions, we've summed it up briefly in our Canarian dictionary. Here comes the full story.
What's in a barraquito
The base is the Canarian cortado: espresso, condensed milk and milk. Add a little liqueur, lemon peel and cinnamon. The liqueur is most often Licor 43, sometimes Tía María. Licor 43, by the way, is made in Cartagena on the Spanish mainland, from 43 ingredients according to the maker, following a secret family recipe.
The layers form because the ingredients have different densities, and until you stir, they stay apart. Turismo de Tenerife has published two recipes over the years, in a different order. According to one, the condensed milk goes at the bottom, then the Licor 43, then the coffee, and finally milk and milk foam, which gives you the five colours. In an earlier recipe, the same source also spells out the key point: no two barraquitos are alike. Many places have their own “barraquito especial de la casa”, with other spices, cream or a different liqueur.
Once it's in front of you, don't drink it layer by layer, however pretty it looks. Locals push the lemon peel down with the teaspoon and stir right to the bottom of the glass until the condensed milk dissolves and the coffee is a single colour.
How to make it at home
According to the Turismo de Tenerife recipe, this is all you need: condensed milk, espresso, Licor 43, milk, lemon peel and ground cinnamon. The steps:
Condensed milk. Pour a finger of condensed milk into the bottom of a small, narrow glass.
Coffee and liqueur. Add the coffee with a splash of Licor 43.
Milk foam. Froth the milk and pour it on top. Cafés do this with the espresso machine, at home you can whisk it.
Lemon peel. Add a small piece of lemon peel without the white pith, because the pith is bitter.
Cinnamon. Finish with a dusting of ground cinnamon.
If you pour slowly, the layers stay separate: the milk white, the liqueur yellow, the coffee black, the cinnamon brown. Don't overthink the exact order: Turismo de Tenerife itself has published two different orders over the years.
Same word, different coffee: island by island
Here's the twist that few guidebooks warn you about. The dictionary of the Academia Canaria de la Lengua (the Canarian Language Academy) gives barraquito two meanings:
The first meaning is used on Gran Canaria, Tenerife, La Gomera and La Palma: a cortado without liqueur, with milk and condensed milk, a little longer than usual.
The second meaning, the coffee with liqueur and lemon peel, only on Tenerife and La Palma.
So on Gran Canaria or La Gomera, ordering a barraquito will most likely get you a coffee without liqueur. Even within Tenerife there are differences: according to Turismo de Tenerife, in the capital area, Santa Cruz and La Laguna, a plain barraquito comes without liqueur, and if you want the one with liqueur you have to ask for a “barraquito especial” or a “zaperoco”.
Barraquito, zaperoco, leche y leche: what to order at the bar
Canarian cafés speak a language of their own. These are worth knowing:
Barraquito. In the north of Tenerife and on La Palma it's usually the version with liqueur, elsewhere it may come without. If you're not sure, say which one you want.
Barraquito especial. The unambiguous name for the version with liqueur, so order it this way in the capital area.
Barraquito sin licor or natural. Without liqueur. At the bar in Santa Cruz you'll hear all three: sin licor, natural and especial.
Zaperoco. On Tenerife it's the same coffee with liqueur as the barraquito. From Puerto de la Cruz to Buenavista, in the north of the island, it tends to go by this name, and in many places it means a richer version, with more liqueur, sometimes with honey or whipped cream.
Leche y leche. Coffee with condensed milk and regular milk in a tall, slim glass: the two milks partly separate, with the milk foam on top. This is the typical Canarian cortado.
Café nunca mais. This is how people order a double coffee on Lanzarote.
A curiosity: in the Canarian dictionary, zaperoco also means “mess, racket”, and in Spanish-speaking America, from Venezuela to Honduras, it's used in the same sense. Neither dictionary claims that the coffee's name comes from this.
Where the name comes from: one legend, several versions
Everyone has a story about how the barraquito was born, and the sources themselves call it a legend. Turismo de Tenerife, citing the dictionary of the linguist Marcial Morera, tells of a gentleman named Sebastián Rubio, nicknamed Barraco, who always ordered his coffee this way in a few bars in the capital, and the coffee was named after him. Another source treats Barraco as his surname, and in one version the customer is called Juan.
Nor is there agreement on the place. The name you hear most often is the Bar Imperial in Santa Cruz, on the corner of the Plaza de La Paz, open since the early 1950s, which on its own website also tells the story as tradition, in a “so they say” form: that the barraquito was born there for a regular known as “El Barraco”. Other versions name the Los Paragüitas bar or a kiosk near the port. The only certainty is that the coffee started out in Santa Cruz, and that the name belongs to a regular.
A relative on the mainland: café asiático
In Cartagena, where Licor 43 is made, there's a very similar coffee, the café asiático: condensed milk, coffee, brandy, Licor 43, coffee beans, cinnamon and grated lemon zest, in layers. In December 2021, some baristas in Murcia temporarily renamed the café asiático barraquito and donated the takings to the people affected by the volcanic eruption on La Palma.
Coffee grown on the islands: Agaete
Few people know that coffee also grows in the Canary Islands. Coffee arrived on Tenerife in 1788, when the Jardín de Aclimatación was founded in La Orotava, today's botanical garden in Puerto de la Cruz. The botanical garden listing.
Between 1930 and 1940 the plantations were disappearing, and in the north-west of Gran Canaria only a small area survived: Agaete, today the heart of Canarian coffee: every stage of “Café de Agaete”, from growing to processing, takes place inside the valley. There are also small plantations on La Palma, Tenerife, La Gomera and Lanzarote. According to the Gobierno de Canarias, the local coffee won a bronze medal at the 1889 World's Fair in Paris. On 6 April 2026, the growers' association filed its application for a protected geographical indication (PGI) for “Café de Agaete”, covering the Arabica Typica variety grown at altitudes between 150 and 550 metres. The application is now before the European Commission, until then the name enjoys transitional national protection, and according to the press a final decision is not expected before mid-2027.
In the Agaete valley, one of the farms growing coffee is Finca La Laja. The Finca La Laja listing. We've written about the islands' farms, wineries and locally grown produce in our ecotourism article: Ecotourism in the Canary Islands.
In October, La Orotava is looking for the best barraquito
From 5 to 31 October, the Ayuntamiento de La Orotava is holding the “Mi barraquito o tu zaperoco” food competition for the third time. According to the official café guide, 18 local cafés are taking part, each with its own version, and the names alone show how free the genre is: there's a gofio barraquito (at Breslau Café), a pistachio “Italian” barraquito (at Capricho Dulce & Salado) and half of the 18 drinks are zaperocos. You vote at the café, using the QR code in the guide: the organisers ask you to vote on site so that your visit counts. Among the voters, a night for two with breakfast at the Parador del Parque Nacional del Teide will be drawn. The previous edition received more than 1,800 votes. If you're gluten intolerant, be careful with the gofio version: gofio is made from wheat as well as from maize, so ask what it's made of. We've written about gluten-free options in Tenerife here: Where to eat gluten-free in Tenerife. The competition in our events calendar.
If you're looking for more ideas for a rainy afternoon, besides the cafés we recommend this article: What to do in Tenerife when it rains. You'll find Tenerife cafés in our list of cafés, and we've written about Canarian cuisine here: Canarian food: what to eat in Tenerife.
Sources: Academia Canaria de la Lengua, dictionary (barraquito, zaperoco); ASALE, Diccionario de americanismos (zaperoco); Turismo de Tenerife blog (2013 and 2019); Diario de Avisos; eldiario.es; Atlántico Hoy; RTVC; Marca Canaria; Guanchipedia; El Día; Food & Wine; Bar Imperial (barimperial.net); Licor 43 (licor43.com); Wikipedia (Barraquito); Hola Islas Canarias (Agaete coffee); Gobierno de Canarias press releases; BOE (20 May 2026); Infobae; Ayuntamiento de La Orotava (laorotava.es) and the official café guide of the 3rd “Mi barraquito o tu zaperoco”.
Cover photo (cropped): barraquito, Tenerife. Jürgen Lindert, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, via Wikimedia Commons.
