Running low on inventory...

The hot weather makes it both uncomfortable to roast and introduces the risk of damage to the roaster from excessive temperature when it's running. And that means the heat is getting in the way of having coffee on hand for the morning brew.

But if I had some Cuban coffee on hand, this ad suggests I might be able to get the roasting done before the Bullet died! [Thanks to conchscooter of Key West Diaries for the image!]

We got hooked on Cuban coffee back when we moved on our Gemini catamaran to Key West in mid-2002. You can find a decent cup of Cuban at pretty much any place that caters to tourists with offerings of snacks/food/groceries, but there are a couple that we favored-

• Five Brothers either in-town or up on Ramrod Key at MM-26
• El Mocho which is a working-dude's cafe on Stock Island (where our marina was)
  

If you're a 3rd wave coffee snob (I really hope I'm not!), you might find Cuban coffee a little on the rough side thanks to the robusta varietal coffee beans. But when you add steamed milk (or in my case steamed soy milk) and sugar, everything falls into place.

I would order 'a large con leche, 3 scoops, dark' which means about a 16 oz cup; 3 heaping teaspoons of sugar; con leche is literally 'with milk'; and dark means 'less steamed milk than you usually use'. My favorite place was 5 Brothers #2 on Ramrod Key. Eddie (one of the five original brothers) was usually behind the counter.

Eddie is (was?) a laconic barista with limited English, so he wasn't usually chatty. He had a full beard, bushy eye brows and eyes that could disassemble anyone who was inclined to be rude... we're talking scarey! We'd stumble around with a mix of English and Spanish (my Spanish is limited to a 20 word vocabulary, present tense only). Even so, we'd manage to get a chuckle out of one another. I always looked forward to seeing him.

5 Brothers had a fancy La Marzocco espresso machine like all the other shops serving Cuban coffee. Eddie complained a shop didn't get proper respect without one but he felt he made better con leche when he boiled the coffee in a pan and strained it with a sock attached to a stick (my relatives in Wyoming would call it 'cowboy coffee'). He told me this while we sipped a tiny thimble of coffee with enough sugar that it was like a syrup.

Eddie's daughter Aurelia worked in the grocery/deli as well (I think in NYC it would have been a bodega). Aurelia kept a photo beside the cash register of her and her father. It was taken when the family had their ranch in Cuba. As I recall she was still tiny (2 years old ?)  and sitting on Eddie's lap while he was on his horse. Before seeing that photo I would never have imagined horses and Cuba in the same setting.

I miss those visits to 5 Brothers.