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.

Originally named Coffee Break, it is the brainchild of the Philippine Coffee Board Inc. (PCBI) led by founding trustee and current director Guillermo “Bill” Luz.

He explains the impetus behind this event, “The first objective was to build up some brand awareness about Philippine coffee. Our other objective was to nudge consumer behavior towards specifying ‘Philippine coffee’ as opposed to just ordering ‘coffee.’  The concept was simple: offer free coffee in the mall, add entertainers to regale the crowd, and raise awareness for Philippine coffee.”

In 2008, Coffee Break evolved into Coffee Origins, with greater emphasis on where the coffee beans come from. Luz elaborates, “We moved into ‘Origins’ to show that Philippine coffee was being grown in different parts and elevations of the country, and each region had their specialties.” He adds, “The more that origin is in demand, the better it is for the farmers in that community. Increased demand can mean more jobs, more income, for a community. And if the farmers process the beans properly to maintain their quality, that means higher values for the community.”

Our intention was to build up demand in Philippine coffee so more people would go into coffee production.

Indeed, Coffee Origins has succeeded in raising awareness about Philippine coffee and its origins for the past 15 years. Luz shares, “the concept of Origins is now being better appreciated. More coffee retailers and cafés now indicate where their coffee is grown (e.g., Kitanglad, Matutum, Cordillera, Apo, etc.).

To better appreciate the Coffee Origins, Philippine Coffee Board was also the trailblazer in farm tours in cooperation with its Philippine Coffee Network

Today PCBI works tirelessly to build the Philippine coffee brand. But it has moved to a more “Seed to Shelf” or “Farm to Table” approach according to Luz. We are closely working at how to create nurseries for seed and seedling production because that is the starting point of coffee. Moreover, as production increases, people will need to learn more about how to process and mill their beans so they can get the best flavor and value of their beans.”

Written by Anne Marie “Nana” Ozaeta
This article was first published in The Ultimate Coffee Guide, 2017

Selling coffee branded Philippine-made has become a marketing trend for cafes. It has become a way to appeal to coffee drinkers who want to drink sustainable coffee while supporting the local industry. But selling coffee with Philippine origins comes with a lot of responsibilities, according to Ros Juan, the chief coffee extractor of Commune Café and Bar.

Juan spoke in an online session of KainCon organized by the Philippine Coffee Board to discuss the following considerations for running a café with Philippine coffee.

Get to know your coffee

Café owners should be able to tell where their coffee comes from. There are times when coffee traders might not be fully knowledgeable about their products and could wrongly market their coffee as locally made when it is actually not.

It is better to connect with coffee farmers or organizations like the Philippine Coffee Board which works directly with coffee farmers.

If a café owner is starting out and wants to buy Philippine coffee in small quantities, they can contact the Philippine Coffee Board as they have a database of coffee farmers who will cater to the specific needs of café owners. But if a café owner is seeking to acquire large quantities of coffee, they should go ahead and work directly with coffee farmers.

The same applies to cafe owners who want to acquire roasted coffee instead of processing coffee beans on their own. Cafe owners should work with coffee roasters who source their coffee directly from farmers.

It takes a lot of research and sampling to verify if coffee is really made locally. At times, labels like Kalinga coffee or Sagada coffee are used arbitrarily when the coffee was not even grown in the locations the label pertains to. Thus it is important for cafe owners to get involved in the local coffee community to familiarize themselves with all the local coffee sources.

Part of this is also learning the difference between each coffee species. There are four species of coffee, mainly arabica, robusta, liberica, and excelsa. It is important for cafe owners to study all four coffee species and be able to taste their difference so that they will have an idea if they are getting the right kind of coffee from their sources.

The price and quality of coffee

Coffee is available at varying levels of quality. But whether coffee is of the highest or lowest quality, each quality level of coffee has its own market and corresponding price.

Specialty coffee is sold for high prices because they require a lot of labor to produce. In contrast, there are commercial-grade coffees that farmers are able to sell in large quantities because the standards for production are less stringent.

On the bottom are rejects, which can still be sold but at low prices for certain markets. Café owners are discouraged from using low-quality coffee in their cafés.

When starting a café, it is tempting to offer specialty coffee, but café owners need to consider that it is going to cost them more, and thus they would have to charge more for it. This might not work for certain cafés depending on their location and market. It is therefore crucial to study the surrounding market and see which coffee products best suit the business.

Price also sets the expectations of customers. If coffee is sold cheap, customers will not expect them to be of high quality. But as price increases, cafe owners will need to do more to deliver value for the price they charge with. This means investing in ambiance and customer service.

More importantly, cafe owners must be truthful about the ingredients they are using and price their products accordingly. If customers feel that they are being cheated, they will feel resentful of the café and will probably not return.