Just so you know. When you buy via the links on our blogs, we may earn an affiliate commission at no cost to you. Learn More
Cuban coffee is a little taster of the country’s culture and flavour.
Typically served short with a punchy dose of caffeine and sugar it makes the perfect coffee pick me up.
I spent 4 weeks travelling and visiting coffee farms around Cuba in 2018.
As with Cuban people in general, the farmers were always so welcoming and keen to celebrate their traditions.
I remember visiting my first coffee farm over there which also grew sugar cane and tobacco.
After a brief tour of the ‘finca’ the farmer gathered us around a fire to watch his son roast coffee on a huge skillet.
The smells were amazing and the idea of freshly roasted coffee is idyllic.
The reality though (and anyone who knows about coffee roasting will understand) is a scorched and inconsistent roast which results in a pretty bitter tasting coffee.
The under roasted beans taste vegetal while the burnt overroasted beans are bitter.
However, when the coffee was served to us a little later on after it had been ground and brewed the taste was not what I had expected.
The coffee had a big body but the sharp bitterness was instead replaced with a smooth sweet aftertaste.
I researched coffee and caffeine. Light roast coffee, coffee that has been roasted a shorter time than dark roast beans has more caffeine due to the shorter roasting time whereas the dark roasted beans are roasted much longer hence much of the caffeine is roasted out of the beans. Blonde roast from Starbucks keeps me awake into the night if I drink it after 4 p.m. I don’t have that problem with dark roasts