A Morning at the Cuban Coffee Plantation

As dawn blushed over the tobacco fields, I wandered into a sun-dappled coffee plantation in Cuba, where the air hummed with the sweet musk of ripe coffee cherries and the earthy tang of turned soil. Sunlight filtered through rows of broad-leafed coffee trees, their branches heavy with ruby-red fruit that glistened like jewels in the morning dew. A farmer in a straw hat plucked cherries into a wicker basket, his calloused hands moving with the rhythm of a lifelong trade. "Las manzanas del café," he smiled, offering me a cherry—its pulp burst sweet and tart on my tongue, the tiny bean inside hard as a pebble.
Near the drying patio, women spread coffee beans on mesh tarps, their laughter mixing with the rustle of beans as they raked them into even rows. I knelt to touch the warm beans, their mahogany hues shifting in the sunlight. A mule cart creaked past, loaded with sacks stamped "Café Cubano," while a parrot perched on a nearby post, squawking in Spanish as it preened its emerald feathers. Somewhere in the distance, a conga drum thumped lazily, its rhythm carried by the breeze through rows of banana trees.
The farmer showed me the roasting shed, where a copper drum rotated over an open flame, filling the air with the rich, smoky aroma of brewing coffee. "El aroma es la alma del café," he said, gesturing to the beans that turned from amber to ebony. Sunlight poured through the shed’s rafters, catching the smoke and turning it into golden tendrils.
By mid-morning, the plantation bustled with pickers singing boleros, trucks loaded with coffee sacks, and a vendor selling sugarcane juice from a cart. I left with a handful of green coffee beans in my pocket, their smoothness a reminder that in Cuba, mornings are steeped in the

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