Creating a Coffee Culture from Scratch

Out of all of the many things one must do in the coffee world for it to thrive, and personally, one of the hardest ones is to educate people onto a more sustainable and semi-sophisticated way of production-consumption, why consumption, well, see, consumption forms our general direct relationship with what we put in/on ourselves, and therefore accounts as how we relate with the things we consume.

In the Dominican Republic, coffee has always been a big part of the culture, and yet Dominicans haven’t quite got a gist on the infinite possibilities of embracing all the complexities of the bean and all the benefits to society in all of its dimensions. Most of the Dominican view on coffee culture has been taken in the wrong way, see, the lack of education in the circular production & consumption of coffee, alongside the unsophisticated tradition solidified by a falling monopoly and its economic interest, have created the « non-existent » coffee culture that we had as a society until 2018, that’s when then the specialty coffee movement or (3rd coffee wave) kind of hit the Dominican Republic, changing the way in which us Dominicans relate to coffee as an inherent part of culture.

Photo by Ashkan Forouzani

At Déjà Brew® we have the vision of collaborating with the agents of the new coffee movement in the D.R., our mission is to « Elevate the Dominican Coffee », which to be honest, is no easy task, we must try and collaborate in a circular process where all parts involved in the coffee cycle « from plant to cup » are all synched in the same frequency, for we understand that the only way we can actually manage to overcome the challenges to come is to actively engage in creating a culture that prioritizes education over profit and identity (without leaving the latter behind).

Yet, we’re hopeful that we will contribute to the creation of an actively engaging coffee culture in the D.R., one that entices all of the participants to boost our coffee both at a local and a global level, and who knows? maybe the D.R. will become the next big thing in matters of coffee origins in the industry. As a company, no, as part of this growing community, we declare that our bet is Dominican coffee, and in this play, we’re all in.