A Philippine ambassador – for coffee

He went to America with his parents when he was just four years old. He got educated and had a good job as an engineer at an electric vehicle facility and then thought: “How do I give back to my country?” His mother mentioned there was coffee in his home, the Philippines. He started to explore coffee some eight years ago and put up a coffee shop with one mission: serve only Philippine coffee.

Fast forward to today, Ron Dizon has traveled to the Philippines several times in eight years to discover our coffees: all four species or varieties found here – Robusta, Excelsa, Arabica and Liberica. He was just in Mindanao last week and in Calabarzon this time, planting his own Liberica tree to symbolize what is now his life mission: to promote Philippine coffee all over the world, starting with the USA.

Liberica (Barako) had been snubbed by many coffee “experts” some 20 years ago, because Arabica was the standard for everyone. This favored species – mild, aromatic, available almost everywhere from Africa to Central America and Brazil, became the coffee experts’ standard. Liberica, meantime, had to wait its turn.

When the millennials and Gen Z population took over the coffee scene, they changed the game. Lighter roasts, fruity flavors and different processes became the trend to make unusual flavors come out of Arabica. Enter Liberica. It is a natural. Fruity and flowery, it fit well into the palates of the new coffee “experts.” It is also unusually bigger than Arabica and Robusta. Ron Dizon knew this all along. He was just quietly promoting it in a humble café in Los Alamitos, California.

Today, Ron dreams big – he wants to give back to the very producers of these coffees by pricing it right, paying good prices because his customers do not mind paying for a special kind of coffee. And he’s doing it the ambassador way. He came up with a Philippine coffee ambassador kit featuring all four varieties, roasted by Ron himself. Remember he’s an engineer? He used his engineering skills to get the best flavors out of each bean using his air roaster. He demonstrates using an Aeropress portable coffee kit – as he tells you about the country and the different parts of the map where coffee grows.

He is here for a tour of all the origins (the term where coffee grows), from Mindanao to Luzon. Though he hails from Bacolor, Pampanga, his folks have roots in Ilocos, too. Ron even took his children on a five-day short visit to his grandparents so they could “connect” with their roots, too. Because even if you grew up in America, you somehow look for your origins and Ron wanted his children to know that there is home here.

Coffee for this engineer-turned-entrepreneur will never be the same. He is going around looking for the three other species – Excelsa, Liberica and Robusta, because he knows the Philippines has a lot of these exotic varieties. Armed with his Aeropress coffee brewer and a Philippine map, he tastes each coffee and shows everyone his mission to give back to the very producer who keeps coffee alive to this day.

In April, he will showcase Philippine coffee at the World of Coffee event in San Diego, California as a roaster, engineer and coffee ambassador. This is the first time for a private company to finally display and brew coffee at this specialty event, which will highlight our country’s rich coffee resources. Many trade shows have featured roasted Philippine coffees, which he thinks failed because as a roaster himself, he wanted to buy the raw beans and roast them in his lab.

He will be sharing Philippine coffee with other roasters from US and beyond, in the form that all roasters look for – so they can put their own expressions and interpretations for every kind of coffee they meet. Meantime, Foreign Trade Service Corps (FTSC) of the DTI has helped Ron from the start in Los Angeles, looking for coffee consolidators who could share samples with Ron.

Ron’s interest to be the ambassador of coffee has tickled the interest of other Filipinos longing for a taste of home. Many have volunteered to help him – like the Philippine chambers and even impact investors who have shown interest in bringing more coffee to the USA.

The passion of Ron is infectious and inspiring, to say the least. He gave up his corporate job at the EV company to focus on just one mission: Philippine coffee. His request is for farmers to just do their job well – of picking the very best coffees – and he will assist in getting them to have better post-harvest facilities, either through private resources or through convergence with government agencies.

Many buyers have attempted to do what Ron is doing: going to farms and meeting the farmers and taking their produce to many parts of the world. What sets Ron apart from all the first attempts of others is his willingness to share what he knows – he is willing to sell to competitors like roasters, which many are not wont to do. Because what sets his coffee apart is his story – a Filipino going back to his roots and his desire to be an ambassador for Philippine coffee. Though a self-confessed introvert, Ron can now speak to many audiences powered by just one desire and passion – his mission to give back to a country he left and is now coming back to.

His story is real and relatable to many overseas Filipinos. If Ron found coffee as his product, I am certain other overseas Filipinos will find a cause to bring our products abroad, be their own ambassador and reap the best profit: reconnection with your roots.

There are millions of Filipinos abroad just like Ron who left when they still had no idea what home is like. Take it from him – there is a home waiting for all of you and products waiting for their ambassadors.

Kudos to Ron and partners, you have raised the Philippine flag and do our farmers proud. Not in commodity, but in specialty coffee, done right.