Calling All Coffee Drinkers - World's Best Coffee Now Available Online
Last week, we talked about an amazing chocolate tea - this time, let's talk coffee.
When my plane landed in the Dominican Republic in 2016, I was not a coffee drinker. Sure, I hit up Starbucks every now and again - but my coffee had to be syrupy sweet and seldom.
Breakfast at the Blue Jacktar Hotel changed that forever. "Con leche?" the server asked (that means "With milk?" by the way), filling my cup with the steaming liquid brewed from Santo Domingo coffee beans, grown right there on the island. "Sí," I answered, and added a bit of raw sugar.
When I left the country a week later, I didn't know I was hooked. We had picked up a few bags of Cafe Santo Domingo at the La Sirena grocery store to bring back to family and friends. The first morning home, my tongue tingled with longing for the smooth, invigorating liquid. I knew that my one small bag wouldn't last long.
The problem was, Cafe Santo Domingo isn't sold in U.S. stores (a few coffee shops do exist in Canada). Thank goodness for the internet. My morning coffee addiction is two years in the making and still going strong.
What makes Cafe Santo Domingo unique? The company describes it as "roasted medium, but it has a bold taste that is normally associated with a dark roast." It may be bold, but it's also smooth. Cafe Santo Domingo has none of the bitterness that kept me from coffee in the first place. Sometimes I drink this coffee black, at other times with a splash of half and half, occasionally with a teaspoon of raw sugar or honey. It's similar in flavor to Starbucks Veranda Blonde - only better.
I hope you'll indulge in this fine exotic coffee, but in the meantime, I'll share just one amusing anecdote. A week in the Dominican, and I ate every meal al fresco - that is, outdoors. The fresh raw sugar that flavored my coffee was also a temptation to local wildlife. Restaurant employees were often seen shooing birds from the tables. A few feathered friends displayed an ingenious technique - land on a table, grab a packet of sugar, and fly to safety. In the video below, an indigenous bird has done just that.
