For coffee and country

MANILA, Philippines - It is perplexing that the Philippines, despite its rich coffee tradition and history, doesn’t grow enough of the bean and has to import to meet the local demand.

For Filipinos, just like the rest of the world, the morning is never complete without a cup of coffee to perk up one’s self before beginning the day. Forget breakfast, but not coffee.

It is an everyday ritual that dates back to the Spanish colonial era. In 1740, a Spanish Franciscan monk introduced the first coffee tree in Lipa, Batangas, and by the 1880s, the Philippines was a major coffee exporter. Batangas is still known today as the Philippines’ coffee capital even though there are 21 other provinces from Luzon to Mindanao growing coffee.

Philippine coffee has a fabled reputation as a strong waker-upper. Hence, its barako nickname (roughly translated as “tough guy” in Tagalog) among Filipinos. Contrary to popular perception, barako coffee strictly refers to the liberica bean variety, which is strong enough to give you heart palpitations if you gulp down too much of it.

In 1890, coffee rust nearly wiped out all the coffee trees in the country and the industry has never fully recovered since. Filipinos consume over 60,000 metric tons of coffee annually but the Philippines inexplicably grows an average of 30,000 metric tons only, according to the Philippine Coffee Board, a local coffee advocacy group. Coffee is imported, mostly from Vietnam, to meet the remaining demand.

To put it in perspective, a coffee tree produces a kilo of green coffee beans (the natural color before roasting), enough for 100 cups of coffee. If you drink three cups a day or 1,000 cups a year, you need to plant up to 12 coffee trees a year if you don’t want to miss a cup.

For social entrepreneur and self-confessed coffee lover Pacita “Chit” Juan importing coffee is unacceptable. If the bean were a religion, Juan would be the archbishop - if not the pope - of Philippine coffee.

“Some people have asked me why do I keep doing this,” she says. “Why can’t we make it like wine? I’m still very much interested in making people appreciate good coffee like wine. Even the house wine should be good. In the same manner every cup of coffee you drink should be good. When do we get to that?”

Her love for coffee prompted her, along with several other coffee-loving friends, to put up Figaro Coffee Company in 1993, the Philippine equivalent of Starbucks. Along the way while looking for local coffee sources for Figaro, she discovered that the barako coffee was close to extinction.

In 2005, she and Alejandro Mojica co-authored “Barako: The Big Bean” to raise public awareness. The Philippines is among the few countries that produces all four main varieties of coffee - arabica, excelsa, liberica and robusta.

Juan lost the helm at Figaro in 2008 after a hostile boardroom takeover but never lost her passion for coffee. She remains at the forefront of Philippine Coffee Board, which she established in 2002 with several others.

In 2009, the group launched a development program in an effort to rehabilitate the P3-billion coffee industry. It set a production target of 75,000 tons annually by the year 2015, taking into account an annual two percent increase in demand.

Last year’s total harvest figure won’t be out until the second quarter because the harvest season is from October to March. Total production figure for 2009 was at 26,000 tons, according to figures from the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics. Export figures, meanwhile, steadily went down over the years - from P294 million in 2005 to P42 million in 2010, based on figures from the Department of Trade and Industry’s International Coffee Organization Certifying Agency.

Philippine Coffee Board is currently awaiting a P100-million subsidy from the Department of Agriculture for this year’s planting season to buy seedlings and facilities for farms to ensure quality harvests.

People still mistake Juan as the CEO of Figaro. Banking on her reputation, Juan launched her own brand last year, Chit’s Coffee. She takes three cups a day and visits her coffee farm in Amadeo town, Cavite province’s coffee capital, once a week.

Despite the overwhelming presence of foreign brands and low coffee production, Juan sees a change in the Filipino mindset. “People are now apologetic when they serve you instant coffee. ‘Forgive me but we only have instant coffee, ha.’”

Juan’s minimum satisfaction in her mission is seeing the Philippines growing sufficient coffee to meet the demand. But there’s more to it than just her passion for the brew. It’s national pride although, ironically, coffee is a lasting Spanish colonial legacy.

She wants to see Filipinos aware and proud of their nation’s coffee tradition, and she’s happy to see a resurgence of patriotism among the younger generation and a “measure of pride in drinking Philippine coffee.” It would’ve been a different story if the Philippines wasn’t a coffee-producing country.

“Some people have asked me why we don’t promote tea. Since when were we a tea-producing country? Do people in the provinces invite you: ‘Come, let’s have tea,’” Juan stresses. “My point is: why should we lose the heritage?”