The deal permits Alma de Cuba (its recently launched online gourmet coffee brand) to provide technical support to help finance material assistance for small Cuban farmers and the associated raw coffee processing plants located in the coffee growing mountains between Santiago de Cuba and Baracoa (in the Island’s far south-east – not far from Jamaica’s well-known Blue Mountains)

In return, Alma de Cuba has obtained a supply of the very best quality gourmet Cuban coffee – which is very limited in availability. Alma de Cuba batch roasts and packs this the UK for freshness and ships globally via its e-commerce website.

Says Phillip Oppenheim, managing director of Alma de Cuba: "We needed to secure an increasing supply of really special coffee beans and this deal with the Cubans allows them to re-develop what was once – and still remains – a superb coffee growing industry. We get these very rare coffee beans and the Cuban farmers get what they need to grow more.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed in Havana by David Mathew, a director of Alma de Cuba and an emerging markets specialist who worked in China in the 1970s and ’80s; and Peter de Bruyne, also a director and European distributor of Blue Mountain coffee.

The MoU is between Geam, the union of mountain producers in Cuba which is closely associated with Minagri, the agriculture ministry; and The Cuba Mountain Coffee Company, owners of Alma de Cuba.

Up until the 1950s, Cuba was the world’s biggest coffee exporter, known for strong but smooth high-end beans. The mountains of Cuba’s oriente region are the ideal altitude for shade-grown mountain coffee, while breezes from the Caribbean cool the coffee ‘cherries’ slowing their development and allowing subtler flavours to develop.

However, production has tailed off and the best beans have tended to be shipped to the quality conscious Japanese market where demand is high.

The deal involves Alma de Cuba investing some $4m over four years. This will help to fund new equipment for the de-pulping plants, which take the outer ‘cherry’ from the green coffee beans, as well as providing micro-plants which farmers in the higher altitudes will use to process their own coffee cherries, allowing them to keep more value and reducing transport costs.

The investment will also go towards new testing laboratories, improved logistics and even veterinary support for the mules which provide a lot of the transport capacity in the high mountains where the best coffee is grown and where there are no paved roads.

Alma de Cuba will obtain a steadily increasing supply of top quality Cuban coffee for sale globally. It will also develop micro-regional coffees to sell under the Alma de Cuba brand and as green beans to coffee roaster.

Alma de Cuba also breaks new ground by being the first single-origin coffee to be roasted, packed and branded for sale primarily through e-commerce. High end coffees, such as Blue Mountain, are usually sold only as green beans to specialist roasters.

Although Alma de Cuba will be developing a trade in Cuban green coffee beans, its main strategy lies in developing its e-commerce platform for direct sale to consumers as well as a wholesale facility for selected flagship retailers along with high-end hotels, coffee shops and restaurants.

Says Phillip Oppenheim: "Coffee e-commerce is beginning to take off – just look at Green Mountain in the States. Gourmet coffee is also rapidly growing globally and Cuba has a magic and appeal all of its own, so we have a product and strategy very much in tune with the times."

The company, whose website www.almacuba.com is in English with multi-lingual landing pages, plans first-to-last-click websites in several other languages this year and its mainly online social-media based marketing strategy will also be extended into other key territories.

Alma de Cuba cannot currently sell in the US due to the trade embargo, but the company plans low level social media in the States to build awareness for when the embargo ends.