Where else would you find so many vocabulary words for coffee that you can use a different one each day of the week?
Uma bica, literally a spout, brings you a small, strong expresso-type black coffee in Portugal.
Be careful when ordering um cafe. It will bring coffee certainly but again black. If you want milk in your coffee, order um cafe com leite. Remember too that the milk may in certain areas still be goat's milk so your coffee and tea will not taste exactly as they would at home.
Be even more cautious where you mention um cafe pequeno. In idiomatic terms it is the equivalent to the English expression "small beer" and used to refer to a person or thing of little importance.
Um cafezinho would be a better diminutive for a little coffee but with so many precise terms, you can find a word for exactly what you want in the language proper.
My favourite is um galao - a large milky white coffee in a glass. The word can also be used for a military stripe or in measurement terms - a gallon.
Um garoto, the word for a youngster (uma garota being a girl) is a small weak coffee with milk.
Uma carioca, a native of Rio de Janeiro, in mainland Portugal is used to refer to a weaker and larger black coffee than the bica.
Um capile is a new word to me which I found in Brazilian Restaurant terms compiled by P L Cooney. It is defined there as a cold, weak coffee with lemon - hmmm.
This is a long and plentiful list of food and drink vocabulary much of which is common to both Portugal and Brazil. You always have to eat and drink so this is a really useful list. You could choose your favourite items and learn a set number of words per week or per month.
The British,whose favourite beverage is traditionally tea (cha), refer to it colloquially as char - could this be where our charladies (mulheres de limpeza) derived their name through their fondness for a cuppa throughout the day?
To say strongly we would not do something, we say, "Not for all the tea in China."
According to the People's Daily Online, the annual consumption of coffee in China comes to only 300,000 packs, equalling the coffee drunk in one week in Brazil.
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