Why People in Havana Are so Crazy for Their Coffee
Photographer Adam Goldberg captures the cultural importance of Cuba's black gold
By Craig Cavallo Posted February 25, 2016
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Photo:Adam Goldberg
Workers enjoy a coffee from a ventanilla before work
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Cuba's clock stopped in 1960 when the U.S. imposed a trade embargo. More than 50 years later, the American portrait of the Caribbean island 90 miles south of Florida is still painted with old cars and colorful but crumbling buildings. And without much opportunity to see the country over the decades, we've ignored some of its most crucial cultural mainstays, such as its coffee. "In Cuba, coffee is not about the type of extraction or the quality of beans," says Adam Goldberg. "It is a vehicle to bring friends together."
Goldberg is a New York-based software engineer with an affinity for coffee, food, and photography. He founded A Life Worth Eating in 2007 to document his meals and adventures. "When I was traveling, I would get to know a city through its coffee shops. They became a guide for me," he says. "Coffee shops attract young professionals with a good pulse on their city." So last year, Goldberg co-founded Drift, a biannual magazine that explores a city—its culture and its people—through the lens of coffee.
Cue Havana. "I had always dreamed of visiting Havana," writes Goldberg in Drift. With American-Cuban relations easing, he dedicated the month of September there for volume three of Drift, uncovering a complicated history and discovering a passionate culture that has persevered and is willing to do whatever it takes to keep Cuban coffee culture and the island's black gold alive.
Photo:Adam Goldberg
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A patron inside Cafe la Luz. "They only serve espresso," Goldberg says, "and one employee works three machines, each one capable of brewing four espressos at a time. There are 12 stools, so the employee pulls 12 shots every five minutes or so."
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At the turn of the 20th century, Havana had more than 150 cafes. This number slowly started to shrink as coffee took a backseat to the island's production, and export, of rum and cane sugar (white gold). Castro nationalized coffee production after the Cuban Revolution in 1959, and the island turned its efforts to farming food. "Production declined but consumption rose," says Goldberg. "50 years ago, Cuba was producing 60,000 tons of coffee a year." Today, that number is closer to 6,000 tons.
More:
http://www.saveur.com/cuban-coffee-culture
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