Safe from the fierce Caribbean sun, a young boy sits on the verandah of his grandmother's house in Petit Goave, Haiti. But this is not just any porch, and Petit-Goave is not just any provincial village, and his grandmother Da is not just any woman. The porch is the center of village life, and an excellent place from which to watch the world and its strange and wonderful workings.

His grandmother Da, the grand matriarch of the town, is part priestess, part philosopher, dispensing wisdom and cups of black burning coffee as the world revolves around her.

And what a world passes by. There are pipe-smoking peasant women, coming to market, young beauties in silk dresses, three-legged dogs, the ghosts of the dear departed, and a kaleidoscope of other characters all better than life, including a mad bride, a lottery salesman selling magic tickets, voodoo doctor Baron Samedi, impeccably dressed in a top hat, and Legype, whose left forearm was bitten off by a dogfish.

For this young man, his tenth summer is one that will teach him the wisdom of life and the mysteries of death. Written with sensuality, tenderness, humor and magic, An Aroma of Coffee reaveals another side of Laferriere, the man and the author.