From Makati to Trieste: In pursuit of coffee mastery
MANILA, Philippines — Usually, you will find Rosario Juan brewing coffee at her café along Polaris Street in Makati. But last May, Juan found herself some 10,000 kilometers away, trading her familiar brewing station for one in Italy.
From the heart of Makati, Juan is now brewing fresh Arabica in the port city of Trieste — the coffee capital of Italy – where she is pursuing advanced coffee studies.
“I did not know what or where Trieste was, even,” Juan, owner and chief extractor of coffee at Commune Café, recalls to The STAR her first reaction upon learning that she had been accepted into a coffee program in the northeastern Italian city bordering Slovenia and overlooking the Adriatic Sea.
Juan, known to many as Ros, is the first Filipino to be admitted to the Master in Coffee Economics and Science program at the University of Udine and the Ernesto Illy Foundation ETS.
The graduate program is described as a first-level inter-university master’s degree dedicated to the world of coffee, offering a “comprehensive and multidisciplinary education” that covers the “biological, agronomic, technological and economic aspects” of coffee, according to illycaffè.
The program is supported by the University of Trieste, University of Udine, SISS (the International School for Advanced Studies of Trieste), and the Trieste Science and Technology Park – Area Science Park.
Juan joins 25 students from 19 countries for the 15th cohort of the graduate program. The countries represented in this year’s edition are Brazil, Cameroon, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, Lithuania, Malawi, Mozambique, Norway, Peru, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.
“We are pleased, as the Ernesto Illy Foundation, to commit ourselves to nurturing young talents entering the world of coffee,” said Anna Illy, president of the Ernesto Illy Foundation and member of the board of directors of illycaffè.
“For 15 years, the graduate program in Coffee Economics and Science has trained highly qualified professionals who will enhance the excellence of this product on an international level, promoting innovation throughout the entire value chain,” Illy added.
The program has involved more than 290 students from over 40 countries worldwide, according to the Ernesto Illy Foundation.
Unearthing the student
Juan learned about the international graduate program through her colleagues in the International Women’s Coffee Alliance, where she serves as chair of the Philippine chapter. But what ultimately convinced her to apply was a friend’s account of the program as a life-changing experience.
“She had a 180-degree turn,” she shared. “From a coffee producer, she became a trader. One thing she told me was that the program made her realize that there was still so much to learn about and so much to do in the coffee industry.”
Inspired by her friend’s experience, Juan applied to the program last year and was eventually accepted. Classes began in January, initially online under the program’s hybrid learning setup.
“I had to unearth the student version of myself and then teach it how to do online classes. I also had to dig up my concentration skills. That might have been the harder part,” she said.
The graduate degree program blends technical and economic courses including coffee botany and physiology, genetics, cultivation and climate change, as well as coffee markets, supply chain management and market consumption. Online classes are three to four times a week, usually around 9 in the evening (3 p.m. Italy time).
By the middle of May, Juan and her classmates flew to Trieste, Italy, where illycaffè is headquartered. There, they stayed for five weeks of intensive lectures, training and immersion with the coffee culture of the city and its region.
Despite her decades of experience in the coffee industry, Juan was surprised that there’s far more to the coffee bean — and the plant — than meets the eye. One example was a coffee cupping session, a process already familiar to her as a licensed Coffee Quality Institute Q Grader. But little did she know, she was in for a surprise.
“They were all defects! The coffee we tasted came from beans that are considered defective by their standards. But to us, we would have judged them as acceptable or even high quality. One of my classmates, who is also a Q grader, said she would have judged them as okay too,” Juan said.
Bout with botany
One of the biggest challenges Juan faced in her graduate program was the botany course. She said the program was “super serious” about the science behind coffee, exposing students to a level of technical detail she had never encountered before.
The course had written and oral exams that covered everything from the cellular walls of coffee, the differences of coffee varieties scientifically and difficulties in propagating coffee plants, especially their genetic make-ups.
“I studied really hard for that course,” she said. “After I passed the exam, I thought to myself, ‘ Okay, I can finish this program.”
But that hurdle also made Juan realize that the scientific side of coffee could not be separated from its economic aspect, especially for businesses like hers. “They are really serious about research and development. When they identify defects, they do it scientifically, microscopically,” she said.
Overall, Juan likened her experience in the graduate program to brewing a pour-over filter or a really slow drip coffee—a slow, deliberate process in which patience and consistency eventually yield the richest results.
“It takes some adjustments and getting used to just to feel like you fit in. The process is a really slow brew,” she said.
“The program really gives you so much insight into how much deeper you can get into coffee. It opens your eyes to how much more there is to learn and improve in the value chain. Each step of the way is a really enjoyable brew, but there’s always something to make it even better,” she explained.
For business and industry
For Juan, earning the degree—sometime in February next year—will mean more than a personal milestone. She believes it will also create new opportunities for Commune Café and contribute to the growth of the Philippine coffee industry.
“One of my motivations in joining the program is to challenge myself on what I am going to do next for Commune. What’s the next level? What’s the next step?” said Juan while noting that her cafe is now 13 years old.
“How do we shake things up? What are the new things we are bringing to Commune? Where are we bringing Commune in terms of coffee quality, and definitely it will still be Philippine coffee,” she added.
Juan, who is currently a director of the Philippine Coffee Board Inc., said that overcoming her fears of science, especially botany, has helped her realize a new mission in the industry: to champion scientific progress.
“We really have to find the specific strain of coffee plant that would survive in our country’s conditions. For the longest time, we have been relying on seedlings being given to farmers without focusing on whether the variety is appropriate in the areas where it will be planted,” she said.
“We have to be mindful of our efforts, or else all of our resources would go to waste. That’s the missing link I am seeing in the industry right now,” she added.
As for her prospective thesis, Juan said he hopes to focus on helping coffee farmers manage their farms more efficiently.
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