Hector Diaz wears reading glasses over his soft greenish-brown eyes to prepare café con leche in his kitchen, as salsa music pulses in from the dining area. Medium-framed with short salt-and-pepper hair and a mustache, the 64-year-old boasts that he's been drinking coffee since age 5.

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He energetically whisks three teaspoons of sugar into the first muddy froth of Café Bustelo crema to rise from a stovetop Moka pot. Once the remainder percolates, he aerates warmed evaporated milk with the mesh plunger of a French press, combining the ingredients. The resulting cortadito, just a bit larger than an espresso shot, drinks thick, sweet and strong, embodying the stereotypical Latin-American persona.