Trip to "the house of coffee": one of the most important coffee places in Cuba

Hello to all the people who love coffee and make life in this community. After several days without publishing in the community, I do it with a story that, in particular, captivated me and taught me many things about this product that I did not know at all.

It turns out that my work center gave me an incentive consisting of a week in the center of the country, in a wonderful place called "Topes de Collantes" which is one of the main regions of Cuba, in terms of coffee and everything that has to do with this drink.
I never thought I would find these treasures of knowledge and coffee, but, in life there are always surprises that fill your soul and this was one of them.

The Coffee House

One of the places that they did not take us to or, better said, that we discovered was this monument or museum that is the Casa del Café. It is a small, rustic, neat and comfortable facility. In it there are only a few workers that stand out for the knowledge they have about coffee, the different varieties that exist, its benefits, the ways to prepare it and everything else that you should know about this aromatic beverage.

A tour through the history of coffee

The first thing we admired in the house was an image in which they tell you how and where coffee originated. I admit that I had heard the story a long time ago, but seeing it reflected in this house made me think that it would be a wonderful journey.

In this part we learned about the distribution of coffee in Cuba in the last years of the 18th century, the Coffee Route around the world and other stories and elements that broadened our knowledge about the expansion and emergence of coffee, especially in this important region of the country, where coffee cultivation is the main economic activity.

Of tools, pots and tools for brewing and drinking coffee

If there was a moment in which we were amazed, it was when our attention and our eyes were drawn to the different utensils used for the elaboration of coffee and they explained to us about the personalities that drank coffee in these cups or the different utensils used to grind the coffee beans and the cloth strainers that were used to strain the coffee.

I must admit that this was the most sentimental and beautiful part of the tour because it took me back to my childhood when my grandmother used to brew coffee in cloth bags like these, something that my mother also did later on, and I made my first sips of coffee brewed by myself in this type of strainers.

In this place, in addition to the above, we saw where the coffee was piled, where it was weighed, ground and other tools that I admittedly did not know existed or the uses they had.

From the ancient to the modern and the enjoyment of a cup of coffee

The final part of the tour was dedicated to learning about the new machines used for the consumption of coffee, the different varieties that are grown in the area, with Arabica and Robusta as the fundamental ones, the different types of coffee that are prepared in the house and everything related to it.

A final comment

It was a wonderful evening in which as a colophon we had a cup of espresso coffee, but we are committed to return to drink other varieties that are prepared in the house and that delight the visitors.
Several questions remained to be asked, but we decided to return and these will be the subject of other publications.

If you made it this far, thank you very much for reading.

Greetings and salutations.

Note: For the translation of the text I used DeepL Translate.
The photos were taken with my Redmi 12 phone.