First it quenches the thirst but then it leaves you wanting to take another and another. Granita is the cheapest drink that can be consumed while traveling through the Cuban streets, but in times of inflation, even this glass with ice, water and syrup has seen its price rise until it is placed far from the pockets of those who only earn salary. minimum every month.
Known as “raspado” in other Latin American countries, the Cuban granita has accompanied ordinary people through thick and thin. Together with the peanut cone, this sugary drink was the lifeline during the long hours of waiting for a bus, at dawn without breakfast and even in the impromptu gatherings on the Havana boardwalk, when there was not even money for a little rum.
But that shot of modesty has become unrecognizable. In just a decade, the slushie has multiplied more than ten times the value of it. If in 2012 a glass cost 2 Cuban pesos, now it has reached 30, a price that has alienated its most loyal buyers: retirees, low-income people and adolescents who could not afford canned carbonated soft drinks.
With strawberry, cola and shortbread as flavors, it was striking that no customer came to refresh the warm December with a cold and sugary sip.
In front of the university steps in Havana, a slush cart appeared this Tuesday morning. With strawberry, cola and shortbread as flavors, it was striking that no customer came to refresh the warm December with a cold and sugary sip. If 25 pesos were advertised on the metal of the vehicle for each freshly served glass, a paper clarified above that the product had risen five more pesos.
In the nearby banks dozens of people made a long line for the buses that, increasingly spaced, turn from San Lázaro street. In other times, they would have waited with a slush ahead of them, but most of them are old people who do not have a pension that exceeds 2,000 pesos a month. Spending so much on a colorful extract that you drink in three sips is too much.
Sellers, for their part, justify the rise. “Nobody sells me anything cheap. Every morning I have to get up very early and pay the pound of ice to whatever is on the street that day.” A bag of between 6 and 7 pounds does not go below 80 pesos and “to that we must add the syrup and disposable cups.” To get hold of most of these ingredients and supplies, it is mandatory to also immerse yourself in the black market.
The hailadero follow your list. “Storing the cart in a secure parking lot is getting more and more difficult for me, and then the fines that sometimes they give me, because I’m in a corner where I can’t be or some inspector wants to take money from me. All that adds up and adds up” . His accounts may sound logical and explain why prices have risen so much, but they fail to change the decision of many customers.
What was an emergency drink, to have a drink and be able to walk for another half hour, has now joined the list of what cannot be paid for, a relationship that once ended with beer, soda and bottled water.
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