The next taste of US-Cuban diplomacy will be coffee-flavored

Whether it’s well-balanced cortadito, a simple espresso, or one of the many coffee concoctions found at Havana’s coffee shops, Cubans are particular about their caffeine. Cuban coffee, as a style, is usually some combination of strong, dark-roast espresso with sweetness from sugar.

Cubans are better known around the world for their rum and cigars than their coffee. But in the mid-1950s, before the revolution, Cuba exported more than 20,000 metric tons (22,000 tons) of coffee to global markets, and official figures in the 1980s often exceeded 12,000 metric tons. Since the Cuban economic collapse following the fall of the Soviet Union, exports from the annual harvest have fallen drastically to just 660 metric tons, according the most recent figures provided by the International Coffee Organization.

In that time, Americans have become rabid and discerning consumers of caffeine. And since the Obama administration made a little-noticedregulatory update in April allowing certain Cuban coffee imports, some entrepreneurs and companies have been racing to make it the first Cuban agricultural good to be commercially exported to the US since the embargo was imposed more than 50 years ago.

http://qz.com/709772/the-next-step-in-u-s-cuban-diplomacy-will-be-coffee-flavored/

The Real Style ------- NP 2016