Grows roughly 92% of Cuba's coffee under forest canopy, and holds the UNESCO-listed ruins of 171 19th-century plantations.
The Sierra Maestra mountains of southeastern Cuba, mainly in Granma and Santiago de Cuba provinces, grow about 92% of the country's coffee, largely under forest shade. The foothills hold the ruins of 171 French-influenced 19th-century coffee plantations, in Santiago de Cuba and Guantánamo provinces, inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000.
Field notes
- i
The plantation owners' residences were generally built in a Basque-influenced style adapted for the tropics.
- ii
Pico Turquino, at 1,974 m, is the highest point in the Sierra Maestra and in Cuba.
- iii
Of the UNESCO-listed plantation ruins, Cafetal Isabelica is fully restored.
Elsewhere in Cuba
Sources · 3 Every sentence here was checked against a source we read. Taste notes are what guides describe, not promises about your bag. Last revised 2026-11-11. Some details here are less settled than others.
- Coffee production in Cuba · Wikipedia
- Archaeological Landscape of the First Coffee Plantations in the South-East of Cuba · Wikipedia
- Sierra Maestra · Wikipedia