Colador

The colador is the Caribbean coffee sock: a small cotton or flannel bag on a wire ring with a handle. In Puerto Rico, it’s the traditional way to make café colao, “strained coffee”: fine, dark coffee in the sock, with hot water poured slowly through it into the cup below. It’s also called a media, a sock. It works like the Costa Rican chorreador, but the sock is held by its handle rather than hung in a wooden stand. Here’s how to use one.

The short version

• A cloth sock on a ring with a handle.
• Fine, dark-roast coffee, about 4 tablespoons for 2 cups of water.
• Water steaming, not boiling.
• Poured slowly through the sock, over a minute or two.
• Black, or café con leche with hot milk and sugar.

How does a colador work?

The coffee goes into the cloth sock, and hot water is poured slowly through it, in a thin stream, so it filters through the coffee and the cloth into the cup or jug below. Like any cloth filter, it lets more of the coffee’s oils through than paper, giving a fuller body. Without a colador, Talk About Coffee suggests a moka pot, French press, AeroPress or drip machine instead.

How much coffee should I use?

Talk About Coffee’s recipe uses 4 tablespoons of finely ground dark-roast coffee for 2 cups (480 ml) of water. Use finely ground, dark-roast coffee, the style usually used in Puerto Rico. For café con leche, many households add one to two teaspoons of sugar per small cup.

How do you make café colao, step by step?

1. Heat the water until it steams, without letting it reach a rolling boil. Water that’s too hot makes the coffee bitter.
2. Put the coffee in the sock, about 4 tablespoons for 2 cups, and hold it over a jug or cups.
3. Pour the water slowly through it, in a thin stream, letting it filter all the way through: one or two minutes.
4. Serve black, or with hot milk and sugar for café con leche.
5. Rinse the sock in plain water and hang it to dry.

Brew mode on this page times the pour for you.

How do you look after a colador?

• Rinse it in plain water after each use, without soap.
• Air dry it fully.
• Deep clean it weekly: Talk About Coffee suggests boiling the sock in water for a few minutes once a week.
• Replace it when it smells stale or stays clogged: the same guide suggests every six months to a year.

Is the colador still used?

Yes, though less than it was. Café Britt, a Costa Rican roaster, notes that in Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, the colador is now less common and considered traditional or old-fashioned, while in Venezuela and Colombia it’s still used regularly. In Cuba, it says, coffee made this way is called café carretero.

Colador vs other cloth filters

	Colador	Chorreador	Coador de pano
Country	Puerto Rico and the Caribbean	Costa Rica	Brazil
Holder	Ring and handle	Wooden stand	Ring and handle
Method	Water poured through	Water poured through	Stirred in, then strained
Coffee	Fine, dark roast	Medium	Fine, often sweetened

General guidance only. Take care with hot water and pans, and dry the cloth fully between uses.

Colador vs other methods

• Chorreador: Costa Rica’s cloth filter on a wooden stand.
• Coador de pano: Brazil’s cloth filter for cafezinho.
• Kopi sock: the cloth sock of Malaysian and Singaporean kopitiams.
• Moka pot: the stovetop pot that has largely replaced it.

Explore every cloth-filter method in the cloth chapter.