Boutique coffee story Puerto Rican coffee smells in the Caribbean

The coffee maker is making coffee.

By Phil Newell / reporter Zeng Fanying

What does the Caribbean taste like? Sweet? Salty? Sour? Or bitter?

Sometimes the tongue is a key that opens the space between memory and imagination. For example, about the taste of the Caribbean, it starts with the cup of Puerto Rican coffee in the leisure afternoon. In the afternoon, the Qiaoman Cafe was quiet and elegant, and the sun sprinkled on the gray-green wall tiles through the thick branches and leaves. This villa-style restaurant, hidden on Dongping Road, Zhongshan No. 3 Road, has a lazy atmosphere peculiar to European houses. The landlady said that the villa has a history of more than 80 years and maximizes the historical charm of that year. It was the family residence of a secretary of Dr. Sun Yat-sen.

He leaned lazily on his side, watching the coffee maker skillfully brewing coffee. The special coffee machine comes from Japan, and the coffee beans are roasted in advance on the day they are ready to be ground. After being ground into powder, they are put into 10g and 15g at a time. After the water in the siphon pot boils, it is squeezed from the bottom of the bottle due to the principle of pressure, fuses with coffee bean powder, and the room is full of fragrance after 1 or 2 minutes.

Take a deep breath and the aroma of coffee reaches the chest through your throat. In recent years, the number of coffee enthusiasts has increased sharply. Since coffee landed in Taiwan in 1884, coffee has been developed in China for more than 100 years. However, little is known about Puerto Rico coffee, only because its foreign market used to be mostly in Japan, where the Japanese market was depressed after the March 11 earthquake, and Puerto Rico coffee suppliers found another way, and it just entered the eyes of the Chinese.

It is reported that Puerto Rican coffee has been the first choice for the Vatican and European royals since the second half of the 19th century, and was chosen by US President Roosevelt as the designated coffee for the White House state dinner. According to the restaurant barista, Puerto Rico coffee matures from September to December every year, is picked 100% by hand, is produced and processed in accordance with the most advanced and stringent quality control in the United States, and stored in parchment. Every piece of land where coffee is produced has an ID card, and every year the state finances research on integrated pest management projects, adopts non-chemical control plans, and legislates to strictly prohibit the reclamation of coffee-growing land by destroying tropical rain forests.

On a closer smell, the coffee exudes the spicy aroma of caramel and the aroma of lemon and vanilla. With a gentle sip, it first has a mellow taste similar to chocolate, then a delicate fragrance, and a slight fever in the throat seems to leave a residual temperature. the fragrance of the empty cup has not gone away for a long time. This kind of coffee does not need to add milk and sugar, the original taste is enough.

With the cheerful music of the Caribbean, sitting under the open-air teahouse and tasting the amorous feelings of Puerto Rico, the naughty sun photocopied the trees on your face from time to time. As soon as I closed my eyes, I felt as if I had instantly arrived at the beach in the Caribbean. How romantic and comfortable it is.