Dominican Coffee

Coffee has grown here since the eighteenth century, and the good stuff comes off the mountains: arabica grown under shade trees above a thousand metres in the Cordillera Central and in the Bahoruco hills above Barahona, where the altitude slows the cherry and concentrates the sugars. Much of it is produced by smallholders and cooperatives and, unlike most origins, a large share is drunk domestically rather than exported, which is why Dominican coffee is less known abroad than its quality warrants. Locally it is taken as a small strong cup, heavily sweetened, at any hour. Farms around Jarabacoa and at Polo in the southwest run visits through the harvest.

What you actually see

• Shade-grown farms - coffee under trees on the mountain slopes.
• The harvest - picking and wet processing from October to February.
• Cooperative mills - where smallholder cherry is pooled and processed.
• The local cup - small, strong and sweet, drunk all day.

When to go

The harvest runs from around October to February, which is the interesting time to visit a farm and also the drier season for mountain roads. Outside it, farms can still be visited but nothing is being processed. The Polo coffee festival in Barahona province is in June.

Honest expectations

Farm visits are informal and mostly in Spanish; few are set up as polished tourist operations. Roads to the fincas are rough. The coffee sold in resort shops and airports is generally not the good highland lots, which go to local roasters and cooperatives. Sweetened by default, so ask if you want it without.

Nearby

Jarabacoa and Constanza are the central bases; Polo and Barahona are the southwestern one.