Every community had someone who processed coffee and cocoa. This is how ordinary people made morning coffee.

People would buy penny coffee from the person making and selling the coffee. They would use a tin like an Orwell’s cigarette tin to put water to boil.

Then they would use a gweck, which could be a piece of muslin, or even the cloth cut from the pocket from a man’s trouser pocket, to make a bag. They would run a wire through it to make a handle.

So when the water boiled, they would put the gweck in the water and the coffee in the gweck .

• The strong coffee was for grownups. It was called a café They would add more water on the grounds. That weaker, more watery coffee was for children and it was called glo café. Dominican children grew up drinking their coffee. When the grounds had been boiled  2 or 3 times, they were weak enough to be discarded. The grounds or dregs were called Mac café.

Gertrude David

Age 90

October 2024