Hi, my dear fellow coffee lovers!

I've been tempted to publish this post for a while now, as several Hive friends seem surprised when I tell them about latte made with coconut milk. The truth is that homemade coconut milk latte is one of the most delicious and comforting drinks for me, but it wasn't always that way. Let me tell you about that and also about my recipe.

It's almost December and time to start using my Christmas mugs to enjoy all kinds of coffee drinks. Today, coffee with homemade coconut milk and ground cinnamon.

AND don't get me wrong.

My coffee is just black 99% of the time.

No milk of any kind.

No sugar or sweeteners of any kind.

Just plain

black coffee,

hot.

BUT I'm not posting about black coffee today.

My Empty Cups

My grandmother's and my mother's café au lait are an important part of my own coffee story.

I'm Venezuelan and in my country, coffee drinks are popular; we have been drinking them since we were little kids, even before the age recommended by doctors for children to start drinking coffee. Call it café au lait or latte, our mothers mixed brewed coffee and hot milk, and there was always a thick, provocative layer of foam floating on the coffee, like a playful dancer waving her silky handkerchief in mystery: it'd be more like a cappuccino or a macciato underneath it.

When I was barely six years old, I could already enjoy a strong marrón, cappucciono that my grandmother prepared, and which she gave me on Saturday afternoons behind my mother's back. It was a dark and very hot coffee with a dash of milk, like a strong cappuccino, sweetened with cane honey. It always came with a margarined, not buttered, bread bun. It was all what my mother didn't approve of--strong coffee and bread with no nutritional value--other than to nurture the complicity between my grandmother and me.

My grandmother died many years ago, when I was seven. Her dead came naturally to my awareness; grandparents died someday, long before we did. But my mother, well, no one was expecting that. It's a long story that I won't tell you today, but she died at 58. I was 21 and never saw it coming; She had beaten the cancer, but her body could not withstand the simple surgery that was supposed to be just an extra precaution. Life's irony. I've never had a latte that tastes like the one she made for me.

My mother would bring my latte with a cheese sandwich. It was a flat and crispy sandwich; I loved it. And her latte was like a macchiato with a little sugar.

Cow's Milk, then Vegetable Milks

Over the years, my body began to reject cow's milk. At first it was no big deal, but then it got worse. One day, I decided to give up drinking latte and find another way to remember coffee afternoons with my mother. Another day, I decided to try plant-based milks, but they all tasted horrible--at least the ones I could afford--. Another day, I found myself going back to drinking latte and buying lactase capsules at the drugstore. Another day, I simply decided that if cow's milk wasn't for me, I should just leave it at that and never bought lactase again. Eventually, a few years ago, I discovered that I simply loved homemade plant milks; I learned to make several types, of which cashew, almond and coconut milks are my big favorites. Rice, oat and peanut milks are better just for cocoa, but not for my coffee.

Now, if you're interested, I'll give you my recipe for homemade coconut milk latte.

Hot Homemade Coconut Milk Latte. The recipe that saved me :)

First, we need to make coconut milk. Then we'll brew a little of our favorite coffee for latte, and also, we'll have some ground cinnamon on hand, which will spare us the need for sugar.

That's

coconut flesh, without endocarp (750 gr)
hot water (400 ml)
brewed coffee
ground cinnamon (or cinnamon sticks) to taste

With these amounts of coconut flesh and hot water, I make 1 liter of coconut milk approx. The amount you want in your latte is up to you. Also, you must know that I leave the endocarp if I want to make creamy coconut milk, which is ideal for hot cocoa and puddings, as it is thicker.

I start by burning the coconuts directly on the stove fire until they crack.

Then I identify the soft pore and open a whole through it so I can take the water out. Then a hit one coconut against the other to break them open. Yes, pretty much like a savage woman in the wild. Next thing, I remove the pieces of flesh from the shell and peel the endocarp off. I wash it well.

I chop the white pieces of flesh and they go into the blender along with the hot water. After a minute or two, I can drain the mixture with the help of my yogurt dripping bag--which I keep clean in the freezer, always.

Once all the milk I can squeeze is out, I add 1/2 teaspoon salt and take the pot to the stove and let the milk cook over medium to high fire without boiling.

Notice that it's time to brew the coffee right away! I used my 4-cup mocha pot, which means only 2 cups for us.

At this point I'm stirring it constantly. This takes about 10 minutes and is the step that assures me that the milk will stay perfectly fresh in the refrigerator for up to 5 days or even a week--instead of a couple of days.