Rice coffee, anyone?

Mention rice coffee and, to the country’s senior citizens, it ins-tantaneously opens the floodgates of their memories to the hard times during World War II when they made coffee out of rice.

But in these times when coffee industry has the best products to offer, rice coffee is interestingly staging a comeback.

In fact, in groceries in Nueva Ecija, acknowledged as the country’s rice granary, rice coffee in various flavors can now be bought.

The reintroduction of rice coffee is attributed to the efforts of a former employee of DA-PhilRice, Leticia Busabos.

The products of "Manang Letty", who is fondly called "Rice Coffee" by Agriculture Secretary Luis Lorenzo Jr., are packaged in three flavors: with peanut, three-in-one (coffee with sugar and milk), and caramelized carabao milk.

Ms. Busabos remembers those times when she was young when her grandmother used to serve her rice coffee every morning. Upon early retirement from PhilRice almost a decade ago, she improved the traditional rice coffee.

Now, she is probably the only rice coffee maker in the country as the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) have no records of other individuals or groups engaged in the same business.

Manang Letty now earns an average monthly income of P25,000 from her product, reported Charisma Love Gado of PhilRice.

In a recent 10-day provincewide exhibit, she netted P7,000. She also earned P35,000 in a three-week exhibit in Manila.

She sold her first rice coffee product during the 14th PhilRice anniversary celebration in Muñoz, Nueva Ecija, in 1999. Later, she consigned her rice coffee to a mall in Nueva Ecija.

The sell-out encouraged Busabos to expand her business.

With the assistance of the Nueva Ecija provincial government headed by Gov. Tomas Joson III, PhilRice led by Executive Director Leocadio S. Sebastian, and DTI, her market grew as she now caters to the coffee needs of thousands of health buffs and 30 outlets in the province. Her clients come from Pangasinan, Tarlac, Bulacan, and Manila.

"Many patronize my product because it does not contain caffeine and preservatives as shown in tests conducted by PhilRice, and it remedies gas pain, ulcer, and liver problems," she enthused. – Rudy A. Fernandez