Puerto Rico coffee beans, which used to be one of the most productive regions in the world

Puerto Rico has a history of nearly 300 years of coffee and was once one of the world's largest producing areas. According to Starbucks website, Spanish explorers brought coffee from French Louis XIV plantation to the island in 1736. Yaucono Selecto's fame, once associated with Hawaii's Kona and Jamaica's Blue Mountain Minute Bell, is also a favorite of European royal palaces and Vatican. Until the 19th century, it was the only cafe in Vienna, Paris and Madrid.

But today, Puerto Rico coffee is rarely seen or heard of outside the island. Even its major shareholder, Coca Cola, does not actively promote it. Instead, coffee from Puerto Rico and Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic is mixed and roasted without specifying the origin.

What causes coffee to decline in Puerto Rico?

Puerto Rico has been in the news a lot lately because its government, saddled for years with $70 billion in debt, formally defaulted in August. Its predicament originated in the Spanish-American War of 1898, when Spain ceded Puerto Rico to the United States, making it a commonwealth of the United States in the Caribbean. Unlike the native 50 states, it does not enjoy federal benefits, but must abide by various regulations. Puerto Rico has had four referendums, the last in 2012, when 61% of citizens approved it as the 51st state of the United States, but Congress is nowhere near passing it. State governments are not protected by bankruptcy laws after default, so much so that they have been dubbed america's greece, because their financial situation is similar to their political relationship with america and the european union.

The decline of Puerto Rico's coffee industry has much to do with its awkward economic and political situation. During the Spanish-American War, the United States had established a strong and lasting coffee trade treaty with Brazil, a coffee power, and did not give much consideration to Puerto Rico, which had just been won. Moreover, the economic purpose of the United States in the Caribbean is mainly concentrated in the sugar industry, which also makes the local sugar cane production so prosperous that the small coffee retail investors have no way to fight, and the coffee manufacturers that can survive have to merge again and again to retain their strength. The quality of local varieties is said to be affected as a result