Cuban Coffee Queen Waterfront
284 Margaret St
Key West FL
2022

Lively counter-serve coffee stand offers traditional Cuban eats, sandwiches & smoothies to-go.

Cuban Coffee Queen Established 2009, Freshly Roasted Coffee "Daily", Voted BEST COFFEE in Key West by the locals and tourist friends. Great Cuban Sandwiches, Vegetarian options and gluten free bread available. Our 100% fruit smoothies are amazing NO SUGAR WATER ADDED. Come try us you will not be disappointed.

https://cubancoffeequeen.com/

“One day in Cuba,
I met a lady
who made the best coffee
and Cuban toast.
She told us stories
and showed me how to make
a real cafe con leche.
I will never forget
the Cuban coffee Queen.”


No one knows exactly how or when coffee was discovered, though there are many legends about its origin.


https://www.ncausa.org/About-Coffee/History-of-Coffee

Coffee grown worldwide can trace its heritage back centuries to the ancient coffee forests on the Ethiopian plateau. There, legend says the goat herder Kaldi first discovered the potential of these beloved beans.

The story goes that that Kaldi discovered coffee after he noticed that after eating the berries from a certain tree, his goats became so energetic that they did not want to sleep at night.

Kaldi reported his findings to the abbot of the local monastery, who made a drink with the berries and found that it kept him alert through the long hours of evening prayer. The abbot shared his discovery with the other monks at the monastery, and knowledge of the energizing berries began to spread.

As word moved east and coffee reached the Arabian peninsula, it began a journey which would bring these beans across the globe.


The history of coffee dates back centuries in Ethiopia and Yemen. It was already known in Mecca in the 15th century. Also, in the 15th century, Sufi monasteries in Yemen employed coffee as an aid to concentration during prayers. Coffee later spread to the Levant in the early 16th century; it caused some controversy on whether it was halal in Ottoman and Mamluk society. Coffee arrived in Italy the second half of the 16th century through commercial Mediterranean trade routes, while Central and Eastern Europeans learned of coffee from the Ottomans. By the mid 17th century, it had reached India and the East Indies.


Coffee houses were established in Western Europe by the late 17th century, especially in Holland, England, and Germany. One of the earliest cultivations of coffee in the New World was when Gabriel de Clieu brought coffee seedlings to Martinique in 1720. These beans later sprouted 18,680 coffee trees which enabled its spread to other Caribbean islands such as Saint-Domingue and also to Mexico. By 1788, Saint-Domingue supplied half the world's coffee.


By 1852, Brazil became the world's largest producer of coffee and has held that status ever since. The period since 1950 saw the widening of the playing field owing to the emergence of several other major producers, notably Colombia, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, and Vietnam; the latter overtook Colombia and became the second-largest producer in 1999. Modern production techniques along with the mass productization of coffee has made it a household item today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_coffee


Today, coffee is one of the world's most popular beverages, with a significant cultural and economic impact globally.