Galão

The galão is Portugal’s tall, milky coffee: a shot of espresso – a bica in Lisbon, a cimbalino in Porto – topped up with hot foamed milk in a tall glass, in a ratio of roughly one part coffee to three or four parts milk. It is similar to a caffè latte, with more milk and less foam than a cappuccino and a thin layer of froth on top.

Because it is so mild, the galão is the coffee Portuguese people reach for at breakfast or as a mid-morning or afternoon snack, almost always with something from the pastry case. You’ll find it in every pastelaria and café, served in a glass so you can see the pale, layered coffee,.

It is one of a family of Portuguese milk coffees named by size and strength: the smaller meia de leite in a cup is half coffee, half milk, and the tiny garoto comes in a demitasse.

The galão’s origins are not well documented. Coffee with milk has a long history in Portugal, and the galão is often described as a Portuguese take on the caffè latte that grew up alongside the espresso-based bica in 20th-century cafés, offering a milder alternative to a straight espresso.

Even the name is uncertain. Galão can mean both “gallon” and a stripe of braid on a uniform, and stories link the drink to a uniform’s stripes, to a singer nicknamed “Galão” and to the journalist Fernando Pessa – but none is well documented, and they are best treated as anecdotes.