There’s no better way of enjoying a good flaó or a generous piece of greixonera, typical Ibizan desserts, than with a caleta coffee. After a traditional bullit de peix or a rice dish made just how you wanted it, rounding off your meal with this beverage just makes you smile, as you close your eyes and recall the myths that have grown up around this delicious brew.
According to the classic recipe, ground coffee is added to a saucepan with a litre of boiling water and left to infuse for about eight minutes. While this ritual is taking place, a mixture of brandy, rum and sugar is placed in another saucepan, along with orange and lemon peel, a stick of cinnamon and the addition of a few coffee beans as well. This rhapsody of flavours is also set to boil for three minutes, ensuring that the sugar has dissolved, and it is then filtered into a jug and poured into a clay dish where it is set alight. When the flame has died down, the water and coffee infusion is added, mixing it all together. At this point, the citrus peel, cinnamon and the whole coffee beans from the second boiling are removed.
This drink is only made in a few restaurants and it needs to be ordered beforehand, when you book your meal, but we recommend trying it at Sa Caleta, in Can Bigotes, Can Salvadó, Es Torrent, Es Xarcu, Port Balanssat and Es Boldadó.
The drink’s origins are attributed to the island’s fishermen who added rum, brandy and sugar to the hot coffee that they took with them to help them endure the damp and cold when they were out at sea. In fact, there are those who hold that this drink dates back to the 1950s when two fishermen from Sa Caleta, Pep Pujolet and Pep Es Boix, brought the idea back from A Coruña in Galicia where they had served their military service, but leaving out the magic spell that had to be cast in the case of the Galician queimada from which it derives.
Other sources claim that it was a smugglers’ drink, and that they enjoyed a swig with alcohol as they waited through the night for the cargo of coffee, whereas according to the book “Otra leyenda” (Another Legend) in this case, the drink originated with the fishermen from the bay of Sa Caleta, in Sant Jordi de Ses Salines, with the idea that they induced the monks from the nearby monastery of Es Cubells who joined them to raise a toast without knowing that they were imbibing alcohol.
Whatever its origins, a café caleta is something you really should try, and we heartily recommend that you enjoy one on your next visit to Ibiza.