Unlike most coffee consumed in Cuba since the 1960s, this coffee is 100% pure because it was homegrown by peasants who then roast it for bartering and personal use. So if there is great, homegrown coffee in Cuba, why is the coffee that most people consume on the island today so bad? The answer to this question matters. The elimination of Cuba’s once excellent coffee from the local diet and cultural palette reflects the story of government control over agriculture, exports and the market. Like coffee from Jamaica, Haiti or Puerto Rico, Cuba’s shade-grown coffee, originally developed for local consumption in the colonial period, is extremely low in acidity and high in complexity. Mostly grown by small-to-medium-landholders before 1959 for a domestic market, coffee increasingly disappeared in the Communist era after 1960 for three reasons. First, peasants rebelled in key coffee-growing regions like El Escambray in protest of state controls over production and confiscation of land. Discredited as “bandits”, they were violently repressed (1961-1966). Second, Fidel Castro tried to replace local peasant producers with volunteers who planted a kind of shade-free variety. The experiment yielded disastrous results. Third, top-quality Cuban coffee (mostly grown in the east) was and continues to be destined for export, not for local consumption. “Café de la bodega”, or the coffee citizens receive through the ration, has been adulterated with roasted yellow split peas (known as chícharo or dahl) in varying proportions since the 1980s. Bitter, burnt in flavor and highly acidic, this government-issue “café” gives many gastritis and has turned lots of Cubans against the whole notion that what they know as “coffee” might actually taste good. Puerta de Golpe, Pinar del Rio, February 1997.
