Cuban Coffee Facts

The expression Cuban coffee can be interpreted in two ways, so it's important to make the disctinction:

1. Cuban Coffee made from coffee beans grown in Cuba.
2. Cuban Style Coffee made from beans grown anywhere other than Cuba. This style of coffee is a strong espresso shot and is obviously highly popular in US regions with a large Cuban or latin community, particularily in Miami where numerous Cuban Cafes and restaurants fill with latins who drink coffee as a social activity. They drink "jolts" of Café Cubano in thimble-sized cups often made in Italian style espresso makers

For coffee lovers cafe cubano is the stronger cousin to the coffee styles popular in the US at chain merchants such as Starbucks and others. Cuban coffee is typically a morning ritual in Cuban communities and consumed throughout the day especially after meals. It is popular for it's strong flavors, with large dose of caffeine and sugar. Cuban coffee is served in small amounts, a shot known as a "jolt" with excessive caffeine and sugar making cafe cubano about double the strength of a typical American coffee. The coffee beans are dark roased and ground to a fine powder, prepared espresso style.

Guide to Cuban Coffees Styles & Terms

Cafecito or Café Cubano:
Cafecito is a Cuban-style espresso. It is very strong and quite sweet. There is a Cuban ritual to making a Cafecito coffee. The ingredients are: cuban coffee and sugar. You'll need a espresso maker, and a metal cup. Serve Cafecito in a small Cuban espresso cup.

Espumita:
The first few drips of cafecito coffee are dripped into a pot with a few teaspoons of sugar. The cafecito is then whipped into a foam. The foam is called espumita.

Colada:
Drinking Cuban coffee is a social activity. As such cafecito coffee can be ordered ready to share with your friends. Order a colada and your coffee will come in a large covered coffee cup with a lid along with espresso cups ready to share.

Cortadito:
Cafecito with milk added. There is no standard strength to Cortadito. It varies from place-to-place with some using only a sparing amount of milk where others use half milk and half cafecito. Cortadito is an ideal introduction to Café Cubano.

Café con Leche (coffee with milk):
Essentially Cafe con Leche is "coffee with milk", similar to a latte. Café con leche is a lighter version of Cuban coffee and is a common part of a traditional typical Cuban breakfast. Take a cup of hot milk and a shot of your Café Cubano, and pour the Cuban coffee into the milk. Typically you won’t need sugar, as cafecito is sweetened already.

No matter which of the various Cuban coffee styles you choose, all offer a wonderfully strong and robust coffee drinking experience. Try all these great forms of Cafe Cubano and enjoy!

Cuban Coffee Recipes & Cafe Cubano Instructions:

The beans that best approxiamte the flavor and experience of Cuban coffee are finely ground, Jamaican coffee beans. Many brands of Cuban style coffee are also widely available in both whole bean and ground espresso blends.

Cubans typically enjoy coffee with plenty of sugar, however depending on your tastes you may wish to reduce the sugar in your recipe. Your espresso maker can be a fancy Italian model, or just a good old pot on the the stove. Open the espresso maker and take out the filter cup of the bottom half. Pour ice cold water into the bottom of the coffee maker up to the bolt on the inside.

Return the metal filter cup back into the bottom half and compact it tightly with coffee grounds, the level the grounds off at the top. Screw the espresso maker together and place it on a hot burner at high heat. Meanwhile take a metal cup and pour a teaspoon for each tacita.

A typical stovetop espresso maker makes four tacitas. As the cafe cubana coffee starts to percolate, pour just enough to moisten the sugar in the metal cup. Mix the moistened sugar and coffee until it becomes a light paste.

In the meantime, remove the espresso maker from the heat once the top portion is about 3/4 of the way full. This will prevent it from burning and/or overflowing onto your stove. Once the Cuban coffee is done, pour it slowly into the metal cup while gently mixing it with the sugar paste. If done properly, the sugar paste will create a foam once it is mixed with the rest of the coffee. Pour into tacitas or demitasse cups. Enjoy!

Serve your Cuban coffee after a meal in "tacitas" (small cups) typically smaller than a demitasse cup.

Cafe con Leche Recipe & Instructions

Café con leche is a lighter version of Cuban coffee and is a common part of a traditional typical Cuban breakfast.

Café con leche is typically made with whole milk. The milk is heated in a pot, then poured into a mug, just about to the top. Top this off with with café cubano, stir and enjoy.

Cortadito
Take cafe cubano and add approximately 2 ounces of hot milk, stir and enjoy.

Cuban Coffee History:

Coffee production was introduced to Cuban society in the mid-18th century. By 1790, Cuba was a one of the principal exporters to Spain. Not long after French coffee farmers fleeing the Haitian revolution established themselves in Cuba, furthering the coffee industry on the Island. Cuba's humid environment along with its highly fertile soil resulted in the swift development of the coffee industry.

By the 1820s, the coffee industry was one of the largest agricultural assets in Cuba's growing economy. Prior to the Cuban Revolution in 1956, Cuba was exporting 20,000 metric tons of coffee valued at over $20 million and was producing a yield of over 300 pounds of coffee per growing acre.

With the Cuban Revolution came the nationalization of entire industries in Cuba including the coffee farms. This led to the decline of the coffee industry in general. Production levels during the late 1960s and 1970s dropped to 1920s levels. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the industry had a slight recovery only to be hit hard by the demise of the Soviet Union (Cuba's principle benefactor) in 1990.

What led to the decline of Cuba's coffee industry? First, Cuba's economic downfall led to migration to urban centers which weakend the labor force available to the coffee growers. Second, in an effort to strengthen the coffee industry during the 1960s, the government aimed at developing a coffee growing belt along the outskirts of Havana by using a volunteer labor force. The replacement of traditional coffee farmers with volunteers who knew nothing about coffee greatly affected the industry. The program was a failure and in order to redeem itself the government established yet another program in 1989 under the direction of Raul Castro, Fidel Castro's brother. The later program, known as the Turquino program, improved the agricultural infrastructure and offered agricultural workers better housing. Nevertheless, the program did not attract much attention.

Cuban Coffee Industry

USA & Miami
The United States is the top importer of coffee worldwide. According to the 2001 National Coffee Association's annual Coffee Drinking Trends survey, 52% of American adults drink coffee every day. Twenty-nine million American adults drink gourmet coffee each day. In 2003, the United States imported 22,907,630 sixty kilo bags according to the International Coffee Organization.

Pilon Coffee: Prior to the Cuban revolution, Café Pilon had been a widely popular brand in Cuba, available nationally.

Meanwhile, the Miami-based Café Pilon, a brand owned by Rowland Roasters, generates $70 million in annual sales selling their version of Cuban coffee, primarily to the roughly 1.4 million Cuban-Americans living in the USA. Rowland have turned Café Pilon into a best-selling brand by marketing the coffee as "the one to use when you want authentic Cuban coffee". The brand has it's roots in Cuba dating back to the 1860s. Other well known commercial cuban style coffees are Bustello, Tu Cafe, and Cafe Llave.

Cuba
Cuba is presently struggling to maintain coffee production as a viable industry. Harsh climatic conditions, regular hurricane damage to crops, out-of-date technology, and massive rural-urban migration have contributed to deteriorated roads and an inadequate work force. According to CubaNews, “The loss of experienced workers has forced the government to rely on unpaid middle-and high-school students to harvest the coffee crop.”

According to Cuba's Ministry of Agriculture's Cuba-Café-Cacao Agribusiness group, new varieties of Cuban coffee are being prepared for export with focused interest on the Japanese market. The top importers of Cuban coffee (made with authentic Cuban coffee beans) are Japan, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, Switzerland and the Netherlands. However, the export of Cuban coffee still remains a disappointment when compared to pre-Revolution statistics. According to Tea and Coffee Magazine, "export revenue from coffee comes to just 1% of the total value of Cuban exports, down from 3.9% in 1956."

Coffee holds traditional value and historic cultural significance for Cubans. It reminds Cubans of their origins as "campesinos" or their origins as peasant/rural-dwellers as well as the historical and economic importance of slavery and sugar and coffee plantations (along with tobacco, these were the top three exports during Cuba's birth as a nation in the early 1900s). In addition, for many the small cup of coffee is not just their much-needed caffeine fix for the day, but also their time to socialize and unwind at their local cafeteria.

Cubans today are only alloted 2 ounces of coffee every 15 days. The coffee's quality sufers greatly since it is mixed in with other ingredients to render greater quantities.

Cubaexport is the only exporter of coffee in Cuba and pays a fixed price (regulated by the government) to the processing center. Japan and France currently account for 70-80 percent of Cuban coffee exports; other importers of Cuban coffee include Italy, Spain, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, Switzerland and the Netherlands.

Certainly, an opening of trade relations between the U.S. and Cuba would likely lead to greater sales on the international market and greater production.

Well known current cuban coffee brands are Cubita Coffee, Serrano Coffee, and Estrella del Norte.