Poor Folks Coffee in Matanzas, Cuba: Scarce, Cold & Bitter
Many retirees would need to invest half of their pension in a simple 284-gram (0.62 lbs.) package of imported coffee.
By Julio Cesar Contreras (14ymedio)
HAVANA TIMES – All that’s left of coffee is its color in the cup Rafael brings to his lips each morning at the snack bar in the Armando Mestre neighborhood of Matanzas. Unable to face the day without a sip to fully wake him, this 67-year-old Cuban has come to accept that his wallet can only afford a brew that’s meager, bitter, adulterated, and almost cold.
“Around seven in the morning I leave my house to come here, after hauling water,” he tells this newspaper. Rafael’s routine resembles a hamster wheel, turning endlessly. “From dawn I watch the tap to see if I can at least fill a bucket for cooking or flushing the toilet.” If he’s lucky, he’ll also be able to store water in a few bottles and set some aside to bathe later.
Next comes the visit to El Matador, a privately-run snack bar where, for 20 pesos, a Matanzas local can get a shot of coffee that he doesn’t even enjoy, because the contents aren’t worth much. “It tastes weird because it’s heavily diluted, but at least it’s something hot to jolt me awake,” he tells 14ymedio. At home, where power outages often last more than 20 hours a day and there’s a shortage of cooking gas, using his coffeemaker is nearly impossible.
“When I’m lucky and the power’s on, I can use the electric coffeemaker, but then the blackout comes, and that coffee doesn’t stay warm—it gets cold like a dead man’s leg.” The quality of the grounds is another headache for those craving a good Arabica blend with a rich aroma, mild flavor, and low acidity, like the kind once grown in Cuba.
“Most of the coffee being sold right now in Matanzas comes from Miami,” says a worker at a private café who serves up to fifty small cups every morning. Thousands of packages of coffee arrive in Cuba daily in travelers’ luggage—an informal import that has completely displaced the scarce, domestically produced grounds due to plummeting production. [Of course coffee isn’t grown in the United Staes, so this is coffee grown somewhere else and coming third hand to Cuba.]
The downfall of Cuban coffee is a reality everyone feels. Consumers see it in the disappearance of the product from ration stores, in rising prices on the informal market, and even in the declining quality of what’s still available. According to the National Office of Statistics and Information, coffee production has dropped by 51% over the past five years.
“La Llave and Bustelo coffee arrive from Miami, and people love them because they have that traditional Cuban roast and remind them of how coffee used to taste here,” the vendor explains. “But in recent years, cheaper brands have also started coming in, and even if they’re lower quality, to any Cuban they’re a godsend compared to the coffee sold from the ration book.”
Brands like El Morro, El Dorado, La Carreta, and Cubanazo have also made their way from Florida into Cuban coffeemakers. In the largest Cuban exile community, stores and supermarkets have sensed the commercial opportunities that Cuba’s deep economic crisis offers. From school uniforms at all levels to the shipment of power generators to get through blackouts, the goods aimed at Cuban consumers on the island have surged in recent years.
“My cousin in Hialeah says she only buys those cheaper coffee packages to send here because they’re not the kind she likes to drink herself,” the café worker admits. “But here they’re very welcome, because people no longer count on rationed coffee, which hasn’t shown up in Matanzas since February.” Mixed or low quality, imported coffee still far outshines the coarse, often nameless packages sold through the ration system.
“I used to take the coffee from the ration store, mix them with ground peas, and add a little bit of the good stuff,” Rafael explains. But even that workaround is history because now the rationed coffee “doesn’t come, and when it does, is useless.” “The few peas I can buy now are for eating,” he adds, referring to the legume that, for decades, both the state and consumers have used to stretch the monthly coffee ration.
With a pension of 2,500 pesos a month, Rafael would need nearly half—about 1,200 pesos—to buy a 284-gram (10 oz.) package of La Llave. Doing so would be a financial disaster, so he keeps a mental map of where he can still find a cup of coffee at 10, 20, or 40 pesos.
“I’ve had the burnt tasting coffee at the bus terminal kiosks,” he says. “If I don’t have a sip in the morning, the headache destroys me, but if I drink it at a state-run cafés, I’ll probably end up with stomach pain,” he sums up his dilemma. Government establishments still serving coffee are dwindling, and the amount they brew is shrinking. “You show up ten minutes after they start serving, and they’re already out,” the retiree laments.
One option remains: going to a higher-end place where prices skyrocket. “For me, the coffee at Sala White no longer exists, let alone the one at Hotel Velazco, and I don’t even think about the ones along Paseo de Narvaez. I don’t have 200 pesos to spend on that,” says Nilda, another Matanzas resident in need of her daily caffeine fix. “This one must’ve been brewed early, because it’s lukewarm. That’s what’s left for the poor,” she says at the snack bar.
The worker keeps a bowl of sugar under the counter and dispenses only one spoonful per cup. No more is allowed because Cuba’s most iconic crop is also facing a production crisis. “A pound is going for 270 pesos,” the employee explains. Next to the burner where the coffee pot brews, there’s a package labeled Florida Crystals—sugar from the very canefields in Florida now managed by Cuban-American businesspeople and helping supply the island.
First published in Spanish by 14ymedio and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.
Morning Moses
You speak about the “Straw that broke the Camel’s back”… Couldn’t agree more. When is the “time to act” is definitely a good question ??
It appears that the “Camel”, that being the Cuban people, is not “fully aware” that its “back is broken” and keeps trying to move ahead anyway. Maybe from years of walking the same “route” day after day, month after month, year after year, it has lost its capacity to find a “new path” to an easier journey. Thus it just continues following the “Propaganda Trail” that leads to nowhere…
“Destination Unknown” !!
Whom will be the “Rosa Parks” of these Island people ?? Whom will be the one whom “breaks the back” of this “slave owners” Regime and finally, give the people what they deserve…
“Freedom from Persecution” !!
As with “Rosa Parks” and “Martin Luther King”, some level of “steadfastness” and persistent “forwardness”, eventually worked. We must remember, that their persecutors were finally addressed, by the “consciousness” of other people realizing, certain actions these folks “endured” were wrong and unjust.
Whom do the Cuban people turn to ?? What path do they take ?? Are they not “walking in the dark” ??
With the continuance, of allowing to be “Bullied” and used as “Sacraficial Lambs” by their Government, will they not continue to live in the “Jaws of a Shark”, never knowing, when it will “Chomp on Them” !!
Maybe they need some outside help ??
I have expressed before and reached out to, fellow tourists and returning visitors to this Country, to “Boycott all Travel” for 1 Year completely.
Maybe my, just talking, is not really helping. Only useless words and not direct actions…
“Lip Service” ??
To all whom may read this:)
As my “Social Media” skills are limited, based on my being elderly, and somewhat not up to date, on these things…
I now ask help and suggestions from all readers and folks that care to formally start a “Pronounced Group” that will create a “powerful delegation” to start…
“Lobbying with our WALLETS for the Cuban People” !!
Any contributive idea’s, plans of attack, or “methods of madness” would be, of the utmost appreciation.
Let us on the “outside” help those locked on the “inside”…
“Sound like a Prison Break”
Possibly… It just may be, the “medicine” the Doctor prescribed, ya’ think ??
Love from Canada
Moses writes: “When a young diminutive Black woman in the US whose feet hurt enough that she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a bus, history credits as the last straw that triggered the Civil Rights movement in the US”.
Moses, today in Cuba that same young diminutive Black woman whose feet hurt enough marching on any Cuban street asking for some semblance of human rights would be summarily arrested and sentenced to jail for violating Cuba’s Constitution. No Cuban would follow her exemplary example.
Moses keeps repeating US demarcation history as though that is what and how Cubans living in Cuba today need to do to ameliorate their desperate destiny. Boy, is he utterly wrong.
The Civil Rights movement in the US in no way has any comparison to what is taking place in Cuba today in a number of ways. First, during the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s the US was and still is, though some may dispute the point, a democratic country with all the freedoms a democratic country allows its citizens.
That is, freedoms like open lawful demonstrations in the streets without the fear of mass arrests and consequent immediate incarceration without lawful due process. Not so in present day Cuba since post 1959.
Did not Cuban youth on July 11, 2021 try demonstrating peacefully and openly on Cuban streets just like the Civil Rights marches in the 1950s and 1960s on U S streets and what was the final outcome for those brave Cuban youth, Moses?
Yes, intense incarceration, that is horrendous jail time, without adequate due process for all those young Cubans simply trying to voice democratic rights like the U S Civil Rights marchers. The brutal totalitarian Cuban authorities sent a stern message to any Cuban citizen on the island that trying to openly question their sovereign authority will pay a very steep, steep price.
Perhaps, Moses, you may want to expand your historical knowledge and also consider other more relevant examples of how totalitarian authorities treat their citizens when those same citizens cry out for a modicum of democratic human rights on city streets.
If not you, probably Cubans are extremely cognizant of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacres in un-democratic China. Unlike the U S democratic Civil Rights political protests undertaken under the auspices of human rights and legal due process for every citizen, such luxuries do not exist under autocratic, brutal, totalitarian systems. And cognizant Cubans treasure their freedom though extremely limited it is outside unbearable Cuban prison, unfortunately.
Moses, don’t compare the U.S. Civil Rights movement freely expressed in an open, democratic country as a panacea for present day Cubans to use as an impetus for change. It makes no sense. Cubans living in an authoritarian totalitarian society do not have the human rights and freedoms that a democratic society allows them. You are comparing apples with oranges.
What is the solution to this dire situation? I do not know. Only Cubans within Cuba living in an authoritarian, totalitarian system can learn from other citizens living under the same yoke what to eventually do to foster change for the betterment of all Cubans.
Dios Mio , No Mas
Where is the last straw? When and how will Cubans respond when enough is enough? When a young diminutive Black woman in the US whose feet hurt enough that she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a bus, history credits as the last straw that triggered the Civil Rights movement in the US. It doesn’t require some major event to be the tipping point. This article says there’s no coffee in Cuba! An article a few weeks ago spoke about the lack of sugar in Cuba as well. No fuel, no electricity and lot of other basic necessities lacking. How much more suffering can Cubans endure? What else can be taken away?
Absolutely ridiculous the way these people are forced to live.