Me gusta el café por la mañana: coffee in Colombia (A1 Spanish)
Easy A1 Spanish reading from Colombia's coffee region: the red fruit of the coffee plant, the black coffee called un tinto, and how to say what you like.
Me gusta el café por la mañana
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Camila lives in Manizales, in the Colombian coffee region known as the Eje Cafetero, and says what she likes about coffee: the smell of it in the kitchen, the small red fruit of the cafeto with two seeds inside, the hand picking on mountains too high for big machines, the small black coffee Colombians call un tinto, the drawing of Juan Valdez with his mule on many coffee packets, and the Arabic origin of the word café. The text returns again and again to me gusta and me gustan, and it ends by asking the reader what they like.
Mi región tiene un nombre bonito: el Eje Cafetero. Aquí el café es el trabajo de muchas familias. Me gustan las montañas verdes de mi región.
Al principio el café no es marrón. La planta del café es el cafeto, y su fruta es pequeña y roja. Dentro de la fruta hay dos semillas: son los granos de café. Me gusta mirar los cafetos con sus frutas rojas.
Las montañas de mi región son muy altas. Por eso las máquinas grandes no funcionan bien aquí y muchas personas recogen el café a mano, fruta por fruta. Mi abuela recoge café y me gustan mucho sus manos fuertes.
En Colombia, un café negro y pequeño tiene un nombre especial: un tinto. En España, la palabra tinto es para el vino. A las siete de la mañana me gusta el primer tinto del día.
En muchos paquetes de café de Colombia hay un dibujo: un hombre con sombrero y una mula. Es Juan Valdez. No es una persona real: es un símbolo del café de mi país. Me gusta su cara tranquila.
La palabra café viene del árabe. Por eso es muy parecida en muchos idiomas: en francés es café, en inglés es coffee y en turco es kahve. Me gustan las palabras que viajan por el mundo.
A mí me gusta el café por la mañana. ¿Y a ti? ¿Te gusta el café o te gustan más el té y el chocolate? ¿Te gusta tomar el café con leche o sin leche?
About this article
What you'll learn
Saying what you like in Spanish: me gusta and me gustan with nouns and with infinitives, a mí for emphasis, te gusta for asking someone, plus coffee vocabulary from Colombia.
Camila lives in Manizales, in the Colombian coffee region known as the Eje Cafetero, and says what she likes about coffee: the smell of it in the kitchen, the small red fruit of the cafeto with two seeds inside, the hand picking on mountains too high for big machines, the small black coffee Colombians call un tinto, the drawing of Juan Valdez with his mule on many coffee packets, and the Arabic origin of the word café. The text returns again and again to me gusta and me gustan, and it ends by asking the reader what they like.
After reading
Article learning block
Phrases, words, grammar, and quick practice from this text.
Phrases for training
Add useful phrases to SRS or mark them as already known.
por la mañana
newin the morning
It marks the time of day when Camila drinks her coffee.
Spanish builds every part of the day this way: por la mañana, por la tarde, por la noche.
Al principio
newat first, in the beginning
It introduces how the coffee looks at the start, still on the plant.
Handy for putting stages or events in order.
a mano
newby hand
It says how the coffee is picked: with hands, not with machines.
Common in fixed expressions: hecho a mano, escrito a mano.
Por eso
newthat is why, so
It links the Arabic origin of the word to its similar shape in other languages.
A simple way to give the result of a reason you have just stated.
Key words
Vocabulary that carries the school-day topic.
Un tinto
un tinto
a small black coffee (in Colombia)
In Colombia un tinto is a small cup of black coffee; in Spain tinto belongs to wine.
The same word names two very different drinks depending on the country.
Recoger
recogen
they pick, they gather
Recogen is the they form of recoger, the verb for picking fruit or collecting things.
A basic verb for harvests and for picking anything up.
La mano
manos
hand, hands
Mano ends in -o but it is feminine: la mano, las manos, sus manos fuertes.
One of the few nouns where an -o ending is not masculine.
Parecido, parecida
parecida
similar, alike
Parecida is feminine here because it describes la palabra.
An everyday word for saying two things are almost the same.
Grammar in context
Patterns from the text worth noticing after reading.
Me gusta el café
me gusta el café
I like coffee (literally: coffee pleases me)
El café is the subject and me names the person, so the verb agrees with el café and never with yo.
English puts the person first, so this reversed order has to be learned as a fixed pattern.
Gusta or gustan
Me gustan las montañas verdes
I like the green mountains
Las montañas is plural, so the verb becomes gustan. The pronoun me does not change.
The choice between gusta and gustan depends only on the thing liked, never on the person.
Me gusta + infinitive
Me gusta mirar
I like looking at, I like to look at
Before a verb in the infinitive, gustar stays singular: me gusta mirar, me gusta tomar.
This is how you say that you like doing something.
A mí me gusta
A mí me gusta el café
I, for my part, like
A mí repeats what me already shows. It adds emphasis or contrast and never replaces me.
Both parts are needed: A mí gusta el café is wrong.
Asking with te gusta
Te gusta el café
Do you like...?
Te names the person you ask, and the verb still agrees with the thing: te gusta el café, te gustan el té y el chocolate.
This is the everyday way to ask someone what they like.
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