# Peruvian Esencia de Café Source: https://dailyextraction.com/methods/esencia-de-cafe/ Last updated: 2026-10-20 > Esencia de café is a very strong coffee concentrate from Peru and Ecuador. Hot water drips slowly through ground coffee, often in a two-part pot called the cafetera de la abuela, giving a thick, dark essence up to four times stronger than ordinary drip coffee. Each person then adds hot water or hot milk to their cup to make it as strong as they like. ## At a glance - Ratio: Concentrate, diluted to taste - Grind: Medium-fine (table salt) - Water temperature: Just off the boil - Category: Metal Gravity Drip & Percolation (Percolation) - Difficulty: Beginner - Origin: Peru - Also known as: esencia de café, coffee essence, gota a gota, cafetera de la abuela, tintura ## Steps 1. **Fill the basket**: Put ground coffee in the filter basket of the drip pot, using far more than you would for a normal pot of coffee. 2. **Add hot water to the top chamber**: Pour hot water into the upper chamber and let it trickle through the coffee, drop by drop. 3. **Collect the essence**: The dark, thick essence collects in the pot below. Keep it warm, or pour it into a small jug or bottle for the table. 4. **Dilute in the cup**: Put a little essence in each cup and top it up with hot water for black coffee, or hot milk for café con leche. **Esencia de café** ("coffee essence") is a traditional way of making coffee in Peru, and in Ecuador too: a **very strong concentrate**, dripped slowly through ground coffee and kept to hand, so that each person makes their own cup by adding **hot water** or **hot milk**. The classic brewer is the ***cafetera de la abuela***, "grandmother's coffeemaker", also called ***gota a gota***, "drop by drop". The National Catholic Register describes the result as thick, dark and up to **four times stronger** than ordinary drip coffee. Here's how it works and how it's served. ## The short version - **A strong coffee essence**, made by slow drip. - **Brewed in a two-part drip pot**: water above, coffee in a basket, essence below. - **Diluted in the cup** with hot water (black) or hot milk (café con leche). - **Everyone chooses their own strength.** - **Peru and Ecuador**, where it's also called *tintura*. ## How does a cafetera de la abuela work? The pot has two parts. According to the National Catholic Register, you pour **hot water into an upper chamber**, and it **trickles slowly down through a basket of ground coffee**, then through a filter into the pot below. Because the water passes so slowly through a generous amount of coffee, what collects is not ordinary coffee but an **essence**: thick, dark and very strong. It works on the same principle as other gravity drip pots, such as the [Neapolitan flip pot](https://dailyextraction.com/methods/neapolitan-flip/) or the French drip pots of the 19th century: water above, coffee in the middle, a pot below, and no pump or pressure. ## How do you make esencia de café? 1. **Fill the basket** with ground coffee. Use far more than you would for a normal pot: the aim is a concentrate. 2. **Pour hot water into the top chamber** and let it drip through, slowly, drop by drop. 3. **Collect the essence** in the pot below. 4. **Serve it in a small jug or cruet**, with a separate jug of hot water or hot milk. 5. **Dilute to taste** in each cup. The sources I found don't give fixed quantities. Since the essence is about four times the strength of drip coffee, I'd start with around **four times your usual dose** for the same amount of water, and a **medium-fine** grind, so the slow drip has plenty to extract. ![Chart of coffee grind sizes from extra fine to extra coarse, with medium-fine highlighted for esencia de café](https://dailyextraction.com/diagrams/grind-size.svg#medium-fine "A medium-fine grind gives the slow drip plenty to extract for a strong essence.") ## How is it served? **In Peru**, the custom is to pass the essence and the hot water round the table. "That's our custom here," Eduard Montoya Altamirano, owner of the Trébol restaurant in **Chiclayo**, told the National Catholic Register. "We pass around the coffee and water, and you can add whatever you want." More water, weaker coffee; less water, stronger. One of his regulars was **Robert Prevost**, bishop of Chiclayo from 2015 to 2023 and now **Pope Leo XIV**. Montoya says the bishop took his coffee strong, and "only with water", never milk. The restaurant used beans from **San Ignacio, Cajamarca**, in Peru's northern highlands. **In Ecuador**, the essence often arrives as a **cruet of dark liquid**, "like black balsamic vinegar", next to a cup of hot milk. A writer living there was told that Ecuadorians call the essence **tintura**, and a coffee made with hot water and tintura is **una tinta**. It's offered in many traditional places in historic **Quito**, and restaurants make the essence in different ways, including with a stovetop [moka pot](https://dailyextraction.com/methods/moka-pot/). ## Is esencia de café still made today? Yes, and it's still evolving. In 2026, the Peruvian news site **El Búho** reported on the **chupeco**, a dark, intense essence made with coffee from the Peruvian jungle in a new brewer called the **Mupeco**, invented by **Rolando Ruiz** in Huánuco. Ruiz runs workshops from **Chanchamayo** and hopes to make the chupeco an internationally recognised Peruvian way to drink coffee. *General guidance only. The essence is strong, so dilute it well if you're watching your caffeine, and take care with hot water.* ## Esencia de café vs other methods - **[Liquid coffee concentrate](https://dailyextraction.com/methods/coffee-concentrate/):** bottled coffee extracts, from Camp Coffee to New Orleans drip. - **[Colombian tinto and olleta](https://dailyextraction.com/methods/colombian-olleta/):** Colombia's everyday pot coffee. - **[Costa Rican chorreador](https://dailyextraction.com/methods/chorreador/):** coffee dripped through a cloth bag on a wooden stand. - **[Cold brew concentrate](https://dailyextraction.com/methods/cold-brew-concentrate/):** a strong coffee made to dilute, but brewed cold. Explore every gravity and metal-filter method in the [gravity-metal chapter](https://dailyextraction.com/methods/gravity-metal/). ## Words used in this guide - [Coffee concentrate](https://dailyextraction.com/glossary/coffee-concentrate/): A coffee concentrate is coffee brewed much stronger than you would drink it, using less water, and then diluted with water, milk or ice to serve. - [Total dissolved solids (TDS)](https://dailyextraction.com/glossary/tds/): Total dissolved solids (TDS) measures how much coffee is dissolved in the cup, shown as a percentage. - [Extraction](https://dailyextraction.com/glossary/extraction/): Extraction is the process of water dissolving flavour compounds out of ground coffee. ## FAQs ### What is esencia de café? A strong coffee concentrate, sometimes called essence of coffee, made by letting hot water drip slowly through ground coffee. It's served with a jug of hot water or milk so everyone can dilute it to taste. ### What is a cafetera de la abuela? "Grandmother's coffeemaker": a drip pot with an upper chamber for hot water, which trickles down through a basket of ground coffee into the pot below. It's also called gota a gota, "drop by drop". ### How strong is esencia de café? The National Catholic Register describes it as thick, dark and up to four times stronger than normal drip coffee. That's why it's diluted in the cup. ### Is esencia de café drunk in Ecuador too? Yes. In Quito it's served in a small cruet on the table for adding to hot milk. Ecuadorians call the essence tintura, and a coffee made with hot water and tintura is una tinta. ### Did Pope Leo XIV drink esencia de café? As bishop of Chiclayo, Robert Prevost took his coffee this way at the Trébol restaurant, strong and with hot water only, according to its owner, as reported by the National Catholic Register and ACI Prensa. ## Sources - [How does Pope Leo take his coffee?](https://www.ncregister.com/features/how-does-pope-leo-take-his-coffee) - [Así toma el café el Papa León XIV](https://www.aciprensa.com/noticias/126949/cafe-papa-leon-xiv) - [Coffee in Ecuador](https://notyouraverageamerican.com/coffee-in-ecuador/) - [Huánuco: la nueva esencia de café peruano se llama chupeco](https://elbuho.pe/2026/09/huanuco-la-nueva-esencia-de-cafe-peruano-se-llama-chupeco-video/)