The ACI has spent 3 years studying the market and coffee scene, culminating in a reimagined coffee protocol that is comprehensive yet convenient. Called ACF Coffee Appreciation Protocol (ACAP), it aims not to evaluate but to appreciate the works of nature and the works of skilled craftsmen along the coffee value chain, covering a spectrum of applications – professional appreciation, consumer survey, green coffee appreciation, roasting, brewing, judging etc. Supporting this development are a new coffee sensory certification, the ASEAN Coffee Flavour Sphere, Scentible sensory training kit and Cpin coffee cupping app.

Central to our 3-years’ study is our sensory course. ACI works to break down traditional boundaries regarding the different compartments of coffee. The syllabus of our sensory course straddles green coffee, brewing and roasting, all in one course. All in all, ACI aims to provide education in a paced and systematic manner. We believe sensory is an attainable skill and need not be restricted to a select group of people. At the end of the course, the graduate would have a good knowledge of coffee history, industry and science, and be able to execute, explain and expound.

ACI believes that our holistic and integrated approach offers one meaningful solution to today’s coffee challenges. We will continue to walk the ground with fellow craftsmen to support and uplift the ASEAN coffee community and beyond.

To add further value, PCBI President and social entrepreneur Ms. Chit Juan spoke about maximizing the appeal of coffee through marketing, underscoring the Indigenous peoples’ pride of place and stewardship of the environment, among other distinguishing characteristics that they can leverage to truthfully and compellingly market their brand to discerning coffee consumers. She explained how traceability can be a mark of quality, while also familiarizing the consumer with the coffee’s origins in Mt. Kalatungan so they’re able to connect with the brand story and the farmers behind it.

The activity became a learning exchange for the participants and the lecturers. The lecturers learned about the cultural traditions of the Indigenous communities, and gave gifts such as coffee sorting guides and samples of their own green coffee beans. Each sharing session and practical demo, meanwhile, inspired the participants to continue what they are doing right in their farms and implement what they can improve from seed to shelf.

Together, USAID, GRF, XSF, and PCBI will continue to support and monitor the progress of the participants in further developing coffee from Mt. Kalatungan. With the projected added value brought by organic coffee production, the IPOs can continue their stewardship of the environment within their ancestral domains while sustaining their indigenous knowledge, skills and practices, and―at least from an economic standpoint―adding to their quality of life.

October is National Coffee Month. What is our national coffee anyway?

Is it the famous Barako or Liberica which people think is all coffee from Batangas? It is not from Batangas alone but is now grown in Cavite, Bataan, even in Sultan Kudarat, I am sure.

Is our national coffee anything brewed and not instant? Do we even grow enough coffee for instant coffee manufacturers, when we import a lot of coffee from Vietnam and Indonesia?

Is our national coffee the best coffee you have taken? Where was your last cup from? Was it grown locally or did it come from Brazil, which is so faraway but still produces the biggest volume of coffee globally?

Maybe our national coffee is your favorite cup sourced from the Cordillera or Mount Apo. Whatever and wherever is the source or provenance, we are just so glad Philippine coffee now has legions of fans and patrons, unlike 20 years ago when what we had to do was to first make people aware that we grow coffee in the Philippines. We have come a long way! Today, we even pay higher prices for local coffee than imported ones. For added information, if coffee paid the right duties, Ethiopia and Brazil should be paying 40 percent import duties. But alas, even coffee is smuggled, to the detriment of the Filipino coffee farmers. Know where your coffee comes from, please!

In 2002 when we set up the National Coffee Development Board (NCDB) which became Philippine Coffee Board Inc. (www.philcoffeeboard.com), all we wanted was to make people aware we can grow more coffee as we were producing a dismal 25,000 metric tons to our growing consumption of 100,000 MT back then. Today, production has risen a bit as we battle conversion of coffee lands into industrial zones (e.g., Cavite and Batangas), and we have kept it at an even keel of 30,000-35,000 MT for the last 10 years. But work is needed to plant more trees. As we consume more coffee, many are also cut down for development and not replaced fast enough to even the demand and supply.

Our soft target is to plant a million trees in the next three years and a million trees every year thereafter. It takes nine months for sown seeds to sprout and another nine to see it growing.

This is why in October it will be a good showcase at the Asia Pacific Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction to serve our coffee, if only to remind our ministers that we need to plant more coffee to avert disasters from floods caused by deforestation. It is truly related to Disaster Risk Reduction when we talk about planting trees, specifically coffee. How apropos that we are asked to serve Philippine coffee to all 4,000 delegates to the conference.

We thank the Department of Environment and Natural Resources for thinking of allocating some public lands for coffee planting. DENR Secretary Ma. Antonia Yulo-Loyzaga has announced 1.2 million hectares being mapped for coffee planting and we hope this happens soon before more disasters strike, eroding our mountains and causing the deluge or floods in the lower areas.

Another milestone for coffee month is our project with GCash/GForest where more than 200,000 trees have already been committed to be planted by the Philippine Coffee Board for ordinary app users like yourselves. Already we have planted many of these coffee and shade trees which we can locate by GPS, as farmers get subsidies to plant more in areas from Benguet to Sulu.

Basilan’s Isabela City has committed to plant over 50,000 trees and may increase this as they convert rubber farms to coffee plantations among shade trees. KAPESABELA is a project we started with Mayor Djalia “Dadah” Turabin Hataman last 2022 and we will see more coffee coming from Basilan soon.

Sulu’s People’s Alliance for Progress cooperative headed by Princess Kumala Sug-Elardo will also be planting 50,000 trees as Sulu’s Robusta has been rated as “fine robusta” by coffee experts from around the world.

In Iloilo, many towns are now waking up to coffee and planting more of the crop as farmgate prices have risen, commensurate to farmers’ efforts. This has made Iloilo one of the more progressive areas in coffee production. Through initiatives like Kape Iloilo, farmers now take pride in labelling the provenance of their coffees like Leon, Igbaras and Janiuay –places we never used to hear about.

The Philippine Coconut Authority in Region IV-A (Calabarzon) has ordered the planting of coffee as intercrop with coconut in all coconut areas totaling about a million hectares. That is surely a big addition to our target to plant two million trees.

So today, as we start to celebrate Coffee Month, we have to celebrate the great strides we have made in increasing awareness about Philippine coffee. And increasing interest in planting more trees to satisfy our increasing demand for the brew. Despite challenges like climate change, rising land prices and lack of agricultural workers, we will carry on with innovative ideas like intercropping with coconut, using coffee to reforest our denuded forests and overall make a move to choose coffee instead of the usual species like mahogany or gmelina. Coffee trees encourage biodiversity as well as provide fruits that will then become our coffee brew. Won’t you agree to plant more of it?

Just as we have our national flower, animal, and tree, we should have a national coffee. And that is all good coffee – Robusta, Excelsa, Arabica and Liberica – that comes from all over the country. Even if there are detractors who have a thousand reasons to say Philippine coffee is inconsistent, dirty, not uniform, we carry on with teaching and training producers to produce better coffee. While others snootily drink their cup from Brazil or Ethiopia, we do our best to address the challenges of Philippine coffee production.

Next time you order coffee at a café, ask them where it came from. Hopefully, they will proudly say it comes from the Philippines.

Local organizer of the ASEAN Coffee Federation:

Can your team make 20 coffees in 15 minutes?

How about 15 coffees in 10 minutes?

The ASEAN Barista Team Championship (ABTC) is all about speed, accuracy, and craftsmanship!

It is designed to show the pressure of what happens behind espresso bars worldwide. Within a limited time, baristas must work as a team to deliver three things that matter to coffee customers: fast service and excellent presentation while maintaining quality and accuracy. It’s an energetic display of talent!

The Competition Format

• 4 baristas per team (can be same cafe or different cafes)

• Competition comprises: Elimination, Quarter Finals, Semi Final, and Final Round. Only Elimination rounds have 2 matches. (Depending on the number of participants)

• Each team will serve the required drinks from the Beverage Menu cards with as much art and taste quality as possible in the allotted time.

• The Beverage Menu cards will include Take-away and Dine-in scenarios across the categories.

1.  Two teams on stage will compete against each other simultaneously. Baristas may organize themselves to do any task they deem fit.

2.  Upon the start of the timer, a member from each team collects the first Menu Card from the judges’ table. Both teams will have the same cards in the same order.

Eg:

3. Upon receiving the menu, drinks must be served at the judges’ table and placed on the corresponding squares as indicated on the Menu Card. The second Beverage Menu card can only be collected upon completion of the first card. Only the cups served at the judges’ table will be assessed by the judges.

• Beverage Menu cards will include beverages in Dine-in and Take-away cups in various categories such as Long Black, Caffe Latte, Cappuccino, Piccolo Latte, Pour Over Coffee etc.

• Judges will award 1 poker chip (equivalent to 1 point) to their preferred cup for each order from the 2 teams.

• The first team to complete all orders for the round will earn additional 2 points.

• Additional 3 points will be awarded to the team with the most number of chips.

• The scoring will be based on seeding system.
  
• For the qualifying rounds, a draw between the same number of seeded and unseeded team determines the pairings

Quarter Final Rounds – Scoring per match:  

15 beverage orders: 15 points

First finisher: +2 points

Winning team: +3 points

Top 4 will proceed to the Final Round

ATTENTION :

Signature Beverage

1st Match – Hot Signature Beverage

Final – Scoring:

20 beverage orders: 20 points

First finisher: +2 points

Winning team: +3 points

ATTENTION :

Signature Beverage Cold / Hot Signature Beverage to be disclosed during the competition         

*In the event of a tie, the total score or total competition time will be taken into consideration

How does the seeding system work in the Elimination Round?

Example:

RULES:

1. The competition space will consist of 2 stations.
2. Teams will draw lots to determine their allocation of stations.
3. Organizers will draw lots only at the first elimination round to determine the matching team.
4. Teams may organize their team members to do any tasks they see fit.
5. All competitions will be run with 1 head judge and 2 sensory judges.
6. All servings must follow based on the order from the Beverage Menu Card.
7. In the elimination rounds, competitors are required to serve 15 beverages to the judges during a period of 10 minutes.
8. In the Finals, competitors are required to serve 20 beverages to the judges during a period of 15 minutes.
9. The best signature drinks will be awarded with 2 additional points in the Quarter, Semi, and Finals. Each team will be given 5 minutes preparation time before the competition starts and 5 minutes clean-up time after competition ends.
10. The First Beverage Menu Card order must be completed before proceeding to prepare the Second Beverage Menu Card order. Otherwise, they will be disqualified.
11. Competitors are not allowed to move the cups once beverages are served on the Judges’ table.
12. Judges will not assess the particular beverage should the competitors fail to comply with the rule. Judges will begin evaluating their drink as soon as it is served.
13. All drinks must be prepared using the official products, such as coffee, milk, syrup, machine, cups, etc
14.  All official products will be provided for the competitors during the competitions.

Only ground coffee and water may be placed in the portafilters.

15.  A team may raise their hand and declare a “technical time out” in the event that they believe there is a technical problem with any of the following ABTC-provided equipment.
16. If the technical problem cannot be solved in a timely manner, the organizer will make the decision whether or not the team should wait to continue their performance or stop the performance and start again at a reallocated time.
17. If it is determined that the technical issue is due to competitor error, the Head Judge may determine that no additional time will be given to the competitor, and the preparation or competition time will resume without time being credited. No time credit will be issued for technical issues caused by improper use; therefore, it is the responsibility of all competitors to understand and follow the correct use of all competition equipment.

SIGNATURE BEVERAGES

1. For cold beverages, regular ice cubes will be provided.
2. All signature beverages must contain coffee.
3. Any ingredient may be used in the signature beverage preparation except alcohol, alcohol extracts or byproducts, or controlled or illegal substances. If these substances are found in the beverage, the respective team will be disqualified from the competition.

COMPETITION GUIDELINES:

1. Washing stations will be provided. Competitors are responsible for keeping track of and cleaning their own items.
2. Runners and event staff are not responsible for breakage or loss of dishes or competitor items.
3. The competition will provide two-group espresso machines and grinders
4. Competitors should report to the competition on time. Organizers will not make up time for competitors’ late arrival.
5. Time keeper will be provided by the Organizer. After each set of drinks has been served to and evaluated by the judges, a runner will clear the drinks from the judges’ presentation table at the direction of the Head Judge.
6. Judges’ decisions are deemed final.
7. Competitors comply with the Organizer and Sponsors’ use of teams’ names and images for promotion/ marketing purposes without charge.
8. If the competitor has forgotten any of their equipment and/ or accessories during their preparation time, the competitor may exit the stage to retrieve the missing items; however, their preparation time will not be paused.
9. Once the teams have completed their performance on stage, they should begin cleaning up the station. Competitors are expected to remove all their personal equipment and supplies and thoroughly wipe their station.

SCORING EVALUATION:

1. In the Elimination Round, the team’s total score will be tallied by adding the sum of the poker chips accumulated during the competition time. The top 4 teams will proceed to the Final Round.

2. Both milk and coffee are not allowed to be pre-dosed before the start of the competition. Espressos will be evaluated based on the appearance of the crema, the taste experience of the espresso (sweetness, acidity, and bitterness) to determine their quality.
3.  Milk beverages will be evaluated based on the appearance of the milk beverage (ie. the milk beverage should have a color combination of milk and coffee, with good color contrast definition, balance in the cup, and a smooth, and possibly glossy/glass like sheen.
4. The texture and temperature of the beverage, and the taste of the coffee and milk will be included in the evaluation.
5. Judges will evaluate the signature beverage based on how well the taste components of the espresso and other ingredients complement each other.
6. Beverage ingredients for cold signature beverages can be prepared prior to the competition. However, the espressos used must be prepared during the competition time.

Click here for the latest info.

 February 2024

March 2024
Click here for the latest info.

SIGEP is the unmissable event to discover the latest news, innovations, and trends in the Dolce Foodservice sector: raw materials and ingredients, machinery and equipment, as well as furnishings, packaging, and services.

It is a unique meeting place to have a dialogue with companies and professionals, to discuss industry scenarios, and an opportunity for doing business, networking, professional updating, and sharing.

Click this SIGEP 2024 link to request your complimentary ticket.

Facts & Figures 2023

• 178,527 Total Attendance
• 1,000 Exhibitors
• 155 Countries

Why visit

• GLOBAL NETWORKING
  Make contact with companies and operators from all over the world, creating new connections and sharing experiences with professionals and associations in the Out of Home industry.
• INSPIRATION
  Expand your horizons, explore new developments, and be the first to discover new products, cutting-edge equipment, and revolutionary techniques.
• EVENTS
  Take part in a packed programme of talks, demos and show cooking with highly innovative and artistic content, and make contact with leading experts and renowned master craftsmen in the sector.
• TRAINING
  Expand your knowledge and skills and keep abreast of the very latest industry news, keeping a close eye on the increasingly topical issues of sustainability, marketing, and digital innovation.

Let’s imagine this is a lightning round and you have 30 seconds to write down any sort of coffee terms you know. Common answers would most likely include, but not limited to: Arabica.  Robusta. French roast. Coffee Mate. Italian Roast. Starbucks. Guatemala. Java. Kona Blend. Pumpkin Spice Latte.  

If you were born and raised around Little Saigon or the San Gabriel Valley, maybe a little Cafe Sua Da (Vietnamese Iced Coffee). If you grew up in the 80s and 90s like I did, you definitely remember Juan Valdez walking in a Colombian jungle with his burro promoting Colombian coffee.

Time’s up. Did anyone have the Philippines or Liberica on their lists?

If you did, you can skip ahead to the next paragraph.  If not, that’s where Ronald Dizon comes in.

Ronald Dizon sorting through coffee. Photo by Sean Vukan for L.A. TACO.

Dizon, 40, is the owner and proprietor of Teofilo Coffee in Los Alamitos. His goal: To put Filipino coffee into as many cups as possible. To this writer’s knowledge, Teofilo is L.A. and O.C.’s only Filipino and Filipino-owned coffee house that emphasizes importing coffee beans direct from the Philippines to make the coffee at Teofilo.

The Philippines is one of the few regions within the coffee belt–the region within the tropics—-that can grow the four different coffee beans. Globally, the most popular is the Arabica bean, but that’s mostly because most countries only grow Arabica. One of the main focuses here is the Liberica bean or kapeng barako in Tagalog, and according to Dizon, it finishes with a smoother, less bitter taste.

“Now I can drink black coffee,” recalls an uncle of Dizon’s telling him upon tasting a freshly brewed cup of Teofilo coffee.

This statement is stated on a mural as soon as you walk into the shop, almost as a mission statement. There are no frappuccinos, pumpkin spice lattes, or any other sugary or creamy drinks at Teofilo.

The focus is on the coffee.

“We want people to taste our coffee for what it is.  If they don’t like it, tell us,” says Dizon.

Green barako beans. Photo by Sean Vukan for L.A. TACO.

Using his years of experience as an engineer in the automotive industry, Dizon keeps track of each roast that goes through his six-foot-tall roaster. This helps him know which beans went into each roast, how hot the temperature of each roast was, and any particular blends that he has. If something is off, he’s always trying to get better.

“We want the feedback. Tell us what you really think of the coffee,” explains Dizon.

However, Dizon wants to do more than import coffee from the Philippines for his own benefit.  Working with the Philippine Coffee Board (PCB), Dizon wants to put coffee grown in the Philippines into as many coffee shops throughout the United States as he can. There’s even a sign inside the shop encouraging people to donate to the PCB to ensure that this becomes a possibility.

Why? To help give Filipino coffee the notoriety that it once held.

According to the Philippine Coffee Board’s website, up until the late 19th century, the Philippines used to be a top exporter and grower of coffee throughout the country. An insect infestation prompted landowners to transition to growing sugar cane. Once a bout of coffee rust set in, the remaining coffee farmers abandoned the crop in favor of other agricultural endeavors.  Philippine coffee production and exportation are nowhere near where it once was. For Dizon, at times, patience and supply are the two biggest obstacles he faces in getting coffee beans to the United States.

“Naturally, The coffee board wants to take care of the Philippines first,” says Dizon.  “Then we’re able to get what’s left after that.”

A sign inside the shop encourages people to donate to the PCB. Photo by Sean Vukan for L.A. TACO.

However, four years ago, coffee was the furthest thing from Dizon’s mind. Dizon wasn’t thinking about coffee with a full-time job as an automotive engineer and a family. That was, until he sampled the coffee from his native Philippines. After that, he took it upon himself to bring Filipino coffee to SoCal and started Teofilo, a name honoring his grandfather. Starting at local farmer’s markets and lugging around his coffee roaster on a pallet, demand grew and grew for his blends and roasts, and a brick and mortar location finally opened in summer 2021.

Dizon spends his mornings hand sorting and sifting through bins of unsorted coffee beans. Trying to keep costs at a minimum, he buys his beans unsorted and, using a sifter that he made himself, filters out any imperfections in the various coffee beans that he receives. One might be an Excelsa batch.  Or a Barako. Either way, they all get hand-sorted.

“I got up at 4 in the morning to do this shit,” says Dizon.  “The behind the scenes stuff, people don’t see this. Not that I care. I do it for my people. That’s what I do it for so that they can see that it’s appreciated here and that they deserve it.”

Uplifting his Filipino culture is the main drive that Dizon is working towards. In addition to coffee, Dizon offers various Filipino food items such as a savory longanisa breakfast sandwich and offering to let Kym Estrada of San and Wolves Bakeshopuse his kitchen space to make her delicious vegan Filipinx baked goods (Vegan bibingka and macapuno cake? Yes, please) and a place to pick up her online items. For him, it’s all about giving his culture a chance to shine.

“I want this to be our time now,” says Dizon.

Dizon is grateful for the space he occupies but eventually wants to transition to an open concept that harkens back to his farmers market days.

“We would have a crowd that would gather around when we would roast at the farmers market,” recalls Dizon.  “I want that again eventually.”

Photo by Sean Vukan for L.A. TACO.

Right now, it’s all about the journey and keeping the focus on uplifting Filipino heritage. His staff is primarily Filipino; the younger, Gen Z crowd, and for many, this is the first chance they are finding out that Filipino coffee is even a thing. It’s also a chance to see firsthand the impact they get to share with older Filipinos, especially those who immigrated to the US and haven’t had the opportunity to reconnect with Filipino coffee since they left.

“I’m half-Filipino, I’m half white, and a first-generation. My dad was born in the Philippines, so it’s always been important to hang onto those roots even though our grandparents wanted us to become Americanized,” says Kae Hernandez, 20, an employee at Teofilo. “That’s a really hard thing to be a first-generation, so you are an American, but then you’re also desperately trying to grasp back at your own culture.”

That attempt at hanging onto her culture and connecting with other Filipinos in search of their culture and homeland was one of the driving forces that led her to work at Teofilo and one of the reasons why she continues to stay because their mission is so much bigger. For Dizon and Teofilo, the journey is never over because it’s about so much more than coffee. To them, this is about bridging generations of Filipinos to a place that many have left a long time ago.

“The older crowd comes in, and they know exactly what they want because they want what they want from home, Hernandez says as she recalls the happiness and memories that the coffee stirs up for her customers.

“‘I can’t get barako here.  I haven’t had barako in 30 years. This tastes just like home.’”

Teofilo Coffee Company

10525 Los Alamitos Blvd, Los Alamitos, CA 90720

(714) 715-7183

The coffee industry said it expects to benefit from the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Agreement, standing apart from the rest of the agriculture sector, which has raised the loudest objections against the trade deal.

The ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (AFTA) already allows all Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) coffees to come in and out freely, Pacita U. Juan, vice-president of the non-profit ASEAN Coffee Federation, said.

“RCEP for coffee adds Japan, Korea, and China (to the mix),” she said in a Feb. 3 Zoom call.

AFTA was a stress test for the coffee industry, Ms. Juan added: “If it were to shake up the coffee industry, it should have shaken it up already.”

RCEP will help farmers if the Philippine coffee industry avoids commodification and works out a way to promote its beans as products with distinctive origins, according to Ariestelo A. Asilo, a social entrepreneur and co-founder of Varacco, Inc., a food and beverage company.

“This free trade agreement will benefit farmers — as long as we strengthen our geographical markers of coffee and rice,” he said, referring to geographical indications (GI) system. “In other countries they have chocolates, ours will be coffee.”

A GI is “an indication that identifies a product as originating in a territory, area, or location, and where a given quality, reputation, or other characteristics of the good are primarily related to its geographical origin and human factors,” according to the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines.

The opportunities lie in crop resilience research, Mr. Asilo told BusinessWorld. More can also be done to improve production and post-harvest facilities, he added.

In a February 3 phone call, he said the Philippines produces 60,000 metric tons (MT) of coffee a year, yet demand for the product is 160,000 MT.

Revenue generated by the Philippine coffee industry is projected at $6.70 billion in 2023, according to Statista.

The average volume per person for 2023 is expected to amount to 1.36 kilograms.

Mr. Asilo cited the potential of liberica — known in the Philippines as barako coffee — which is one of the major commercially grown varieties apart from excelsa, robusta, and arabica.

“We have really good coffee. Our (flavor) profile is really good, and we are also one of the few countries that grow all four coffee bean types,” he said.

Opportunities also lie in specialization, Ms. Juan said.

The Philippine Coffee Board, of which Ms. Juan is president and co-chair, has been teaching farmers to process robusta beans into specialty robusta.

“We call it fine robusta. It’s almost like arabica. If you produce 7,000 metric tons and make it fine robusta, you can double the price without doubling production,” she said.

“We try to make small-production specialty coffee, meaning if we produce only 30,000 metric tons, then it might as well be well-priced, (not treated like a) commodity,” Ms. Juan added.

RCEP can help in this department, she said. South Korea, for one, tends to buy low-volume but high-value coffee.

“We’ve managed to create a specialty coffee image for the country. RCEP will allow us to export this to high-end buyers such as Korea and Japan,” Ms. Juan said.

Ms. Juan acknowledged that the rest of the farm industry is in a different situation in the RCEP debate.

“Coffee is a different product. We’re blessed that we’re not as perishable as onions and pechay (bok choy),” she said, “but for the ordinary farmer, (it will really be a deluge) of vegetable imports.”

Photo by Freepik

Coffee is one of the most popular beverages globally, sought for its aroma and caffeine content. It is the most widely traded tropical product, and a growing market due to increasing consumption and stronger interest in specialty coffee innovations, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.

To cap off their celebration of Coffee Month, The Philippine Coffee Board, Inc., in cooperation with the International Women’s Coffee Alliance Philippines, conducted a webinar entitled “Coffee Farming: We Believe, a testimonial from real coffee farmers who are making change” last October 29, 2022. The speakers in the webinar were all women, and Pacita “Chit” Juan, President and Co-Chair of Philippine Board, Inc. shared, “I don’t know if it’s by conscious choice or just the trend in the Philippines, but when we were getting farmers in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao, the names that came up were all women.”

In the thick forests of Mankayan, Benguet, Noemi Dado made use of her great-grandmother’s land to establish Agnep Heritage Farm and grow coffee in 2018. She shared her advocacy of sustainable coffee farming, which her family has thoroughly applied on their farm by growing coffee without cutting trees, producing their own organic fertilizers, and collaborating with indigenous farmers in the area. After four years, in 2020, they successfully harvested their first batch of arabica coffee beans.

Juliet Morales, a coffee farmer from Kasibu, Nueva Vizcaya, shared that she started trading coffee in the 1980s, but stopped in 2002 because of low coffee prices. However, in 2015, she realized that she needed to go back to coffee farming and established Bumolo’s Integrated Farm, planting catimor, arabica, and robusta coffee varieties. She shared that she successfully expanded her farm and now has an association of 128 farmers. At the present, the farming cooperative now covers all stages of coffee production, from nursery to post-harvest processing, and even a coffee shop.

In Iloilo, Bibay Bionat, another coffee farmer, shared that her late father was originally into sugar cane farming, but shifted to coffee in 2012 in preparation for the possibility of sugar cane prices going down. They developed their robusta coffee farm, La Granja Cerza Roja, in Barotac Nuevo, Iloilo. She shared that women farmers on their farm are the ones usually tasked with sorting beans because their attention to detail makes them better at doing the job. In a bid to have a more sustainable water source and additional income, her family built a rain catchment facility, where they also cultivate tilapia.

Another coffee farmer, Jocelyn Mamar, shared that she was originally a vendor in a public market before venturing into the coffee business. After selling in a public market for 17 years, Mamar shared that she eventually got interested in planting vegetables and fruits and started off by buying small lots, some of which already had coffee planted on them. Even if she didn’t have a background in coffee farming, her determination to learn through training and seminars, paved the way for her successful John and Marga Nursery Farm, which currently has farms in Luzon (Cavite), Visayas (Bacolod), and Mindanao (Davao del Sur). Though she has a variety of fruits and vegetables, coffee remains her main crop, specifically robusta and liberica.

Maria Teofannie Tutanes, a coffee farmer in Sultan Kudarat, shared that coffee farming was her family’s livelihood ever since she was born and through it, she and her three siblings were able to finish school. “Coffee is profitable,” she emphasized, just find the right skills related to coffee production, processing, and marketing. Currently, she is the owner of PMTZ Care Marketing and producer of Mnemo Coffee, a popular household coffee brand in Mindanao. In her talk, she also advocated for proper financial management to help coffee farmers and traders to prioritize their spending and save money.

“First, you could start with a small property, or you could have a big property, that doesn’t really matter too much, as long as you can grow coffee. You can grow a lot of varieties, and of course in different elevations, just match the soil and elevation with the variety, that’s possible. And the Philippines, by the way, grows all the major varieties, so that’s not the problem. The third is that[,] it’s never too late to get into coffee…..and there is a network of people willing to train you, to teach you, [and] to share their experiences as we’ve seen here people have learned from each other,” shared Guillermo “Bill” Luz, Trustee in the Philippine Coffee Board, Inc., and co-moderator of the webinar, in his concluding takeaway from the discussions.