A Cafecito Story: El Cuento del Cafecito

"Throughout the Dominican Republic and Central America it is a household ritual to offer a "cafecito" (a small cup of dark, rich, potent coffee) to any visitor, especially a stranger. Now, in a story spanning Latin America and Nebraska, Julia Alvarez offers us A Cafecito Story." "In North America, coffee is the morning lifeline between waking and working. In Central and South America, coffee is an economic lifeline, after oil the most important export commodity. Especially when coffee is grown sustainably, it links the First and Third Worlds in ways that are surprising and often delightful. For instance, North American songbirds winter in southern habitats where their survival is directly dependent on coffee farming practices. With lyric simplicity, A Cafecito Story tells the complex tale of a social beverage that bridges nations and unites people in trade, in words, in birds, and in love." The story unfolds through the eyes of Joe, a man with farming in his blood but an increasing sense of displacement from the natural world. While on holiday in the Dominican Republic, Joe learns about how coffee is grown and traded from Miguel, a Dominican coffee farmer. It is from Miguel and the other campesinos that Joe comes to understand the role of coffee in global trade, environmental degradation, and endangered songbird habitat.