01.03.12
Cash, CUC's and Cuba
Michael Szyliowicz

Buying anything in Cuba is a tale of two currencies. I arrived in Havana with many, many U.S. dollars in my pocket. I knew that I couldn’t use a credit card, and I assumed that like in most places around the world, American currency would be used if necessary. But I quickly learned that as a foreigner, my transactions would be in CUCs, or kooks, as they are called.

The CUC, or convertible peso, is worth approximately $1.00. However, there is a service charge on every exchange, so the real value is $0.87.  Stores and restaurants in Havana only take CUCs. And the idea that Cuba is an inexpensive place to visit isn’t necessarily true.

Visiting the Buena Vista Social Club for an evening of listening to jazz was 25 CUC. The legendary nightclub The Tropicana could be visited for 95 CUC. Cocktails cost between 5 and 10 CUC. Even though these prices are on par with those find in other large cities around the world, they seemed incongruous in Havana. Targeting tourists or wealthy Cubans, it is an easy, if expensive system to navigate. 

For people living in Cuba, the story is different.  Workers in Cuba...

Diary of a Chocolatier, Travel
cuba, CUC, tourism, travel
12.26.11
Cuban Rum
Michael Szyliowicz

 

Cuba has a long tradition with sugar and rum. Beginning in the 1500s, sugar was cultivated on the island, becoming its biggest export and cash crop. Slaves were brought from Haiti to work the fields, cutting the cane.  In the 1700s, as distillation became more prevalent, the crop was used to produce rum, and soon entire villages were created to process the sugar cane and distill it into rum. The sugarcane is crushed to obtain juice, which is then fermented with a mixture of yeast and water.

During this fermentation process the rum is stirred in large vats. The type of yeast used will help determine the final flavor of the rum, with slow acting yeast giving a fuller, richer flavor, whereas faster acting yeast produces a lighter taste. When the fermentation is complete, the liquid is distilled using either a column or pot still. After distillation the rum is transferred to casks for aging. Often wooden barrels are aged, giving the finished rum a darker color and enhanced flavor.

By the early 1800s, Cuba was the second country in the world to have a sophisticated train network, allowing the movement of sugar cane from the fields to the factories and then finished bottles of rum to warehouses for shipment worldwide. The most...

Beverages, Diary of a Chocolatier, Travel
cuba, rum, sugar, sugar cane
12.19.11
Sugar, Politics and Cuba
Michael Szyliowicz

Sugar is so sweet that we don’t often think about its bitter side. For centuries it was the basis of a triangular slave trade between Africa, the Caribbean, and England. Slaves were brought from Africa to work in plantations in the Caribbean, sugar was exported to England and the United States where it was converted into rum, and manufactured goods were sent to Africa to exchange for slaves, who were shipped back to the Caribbean. 

In the 1700s and 1800s the sugar trade flourished. By the mid 1800s sugar was Cuba’s primary agricultural crop, and the U.S. took more than 80 percent of its exports. By the 1920s, American companies established offices in Cuba and owned more than 60 percent of the Cuban sugar industry and imported more than 95 percent of all of the sugar grown on the island.

As leader of Cuba in the 1930s, Fulgencio Batista continued an era of close business and political cooperation. But with his overthrow by Fidel Castro in 1959, however, the political climate changed as relations soured. Businesses were nationalized, and a trade embargo was put in place, preventing the sale of any sugar to the U.S.

...

Diary of a Chocolatier, Travel
cuba, diary of a chocolatier, sugar
12.12.11
Bienvenidos a Cuba
Michael Szyliowicz

I recently visited Cuba on an official mission through Entrepreneurs' Organization (EO), of which I have been a member for almost 10 years.

EO is about encouraging entrepreneurship worldwide, and the purpose of the mission was to introduce business leaders to Cuban business, as well as political, cultural, and daily life.

EO is a global organization, so although most of the group was from the United States, we also had entrepreneurs from India, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, and New Zealand. There were 80 of us on the trip.

The visit was structured to allow us access to many different facets of Cuban society, and to say it was jam packed with meetings and visits would be an understatement.

Over the course of four days, I visited a Santeria temple, the National University of the Arts, received a briefing from the U.S. Interest Section about the political situation in the country, was addressed by the speaker of the General Assembly, met with the leader of the Jewish Community and toured the Patronato synagogue, visited private art galleries and...

Beverages, Diary of a Chocolatier, Travel
cuba, entrepreneurs organization, entrepreneurship, travel