Dominican Republic is known for baseball, beaches, rum, and coffee. For more than 270 years, coffee has been part of the Dominican culture. While visiting the Dominican Republic, you will most likely be offered coffee and by no means should you disregard this offer and not accept it, you will be seen as ungrateful and uneducated to your Dominican host!
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Coffee Varieties
Dominican coffee is of robust flavor, with nuances of roasted nuts that linger in your palate delicately. It is brewed on a stove top espresso maker called “greca”, normally made out of heavy, silver plated metal. When the coffee is brewed, it will alert you by the quick bubbles and intense smell. Exclusively drank from demitasse cups, black with enough cane sugar to induce a diabetic coma, it suggests various moments on the island: a morning wake-up call brought to you in bed, with flowers on the tray; the end of a great lunch; the mid-afternoon break, with a side of cassava cracker; and for some hard-core drinkers, at times it suggests sleep time. 
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Dad at times is all nice and brings Mom and I coffee with flowers<3

Caffeine is known for its power to maintain and fill you with energy to get through the day, but in this particular and most peculiar incident, you will realize the how great the power of a routine is. She would have lunch every day at noon and like all Dominicans, would top it off with her coffee. This all would occur before heading to work and she still had time to catch a short nap. Notice the ritual of lunch, coffee, and then nap, being done constantly for more than a year. She later moved out and to a different job, but still her love for coffee remained. She did notice one thing: her lover (the coffee) had dramatically changed from being an upper to being a downer, a sleep-inducer. The body had adapted itself to realizing that after the short sips of coffee, a nap would come and so years later, her body still continues to do so. She drinks coffee before naps now, to induce her dreams.

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Cappuccino

Most specialty coffee in the DR is exclusively shade-grown, under native Guava and Macadamia trees, protecting them from the harsh Caribbean rays of the sun. Since the coffees come from small, family estates, it is typically organically grown and hand-picked, maintaining the best quality of the beans. A few examples of Dominican coffees at its finest are: Café Santo Domingo and Café Induban. So, if you visit, remember to always say yes to the coffee and bring some local coffee home, as to be able to enjoy the Caribbean during the cold winter months.

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Hoping you all are having a great week. Thank you for stopping by, reading, skimming, looking at coffee pictures and/or commenting. #gratefulbaker 

How do YOU take your coffee?

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17 Comments

  1. I’m glad I’m having my coffee late this morning, because I’d really be wanting some after reading this post!
    I don’t think I’ve ever had Dominican coffee…must seek some out. Great informative post.

  2. Coffee! Your description of the process of making the coffee, definitely sounds delicious. I would never turn down such an offer. Delicious.

  3. Oh I would never turn down a cup of this remarkable coffee, lovely pics!! a perfect satrt to the day. have a great week

    sweetlife

  4. This makes me think of drinking coffee in Ecuador and the Philippines…a bitter sharper type of coffee that goes oh-so-well with sugar and evaporated milk!

  5. Oh you’re calling my name with this post! Anyone who doesn’t love a quality cup of coffee needs to try harder. 🙂

    While I love a cuppa to dunk my cookie in, having a chat with a good friends while enjoying a good cup of coffee is just the best.

  6. Oh, gosh. I don’t drink coffee, but it looks and sounds so delicious! If I’m ever in DR, I will not refuse. I have a student from DR, and she is so anxious to go “home” for the summer.