Coffee calls
The National Coffee Development Board’s Bean-to-Brew Coffee Farm Tour heightens awareness of Philippine coffee
By Maricar T. Manuzon

I usually find it extra hard to wake up on a Saturday morning after a grueling week at work. But this one Saturday was different. We would be on a coffee farm tour, the first one organized by the National Coffee Development Board (NCDB).

Coffee Lecture
We boarded a 30-seater coaster at the Rustan’s Makati parking lot at 9:30 am. The press are the key people to provide coverage of the tour. Aside from media, we had two VIPs on board the bus – Chit Juan, NCDB co-chairperson and owner of Figaro Coffee Company, and Bill Luz, NCDB Director and Makati Business Club’s Executive Director.

On our way to the farms of Amadeo, Cavite, Chit Juan and Bill Luz patiently gave a lecture on the Philippine coffee industry and the Coffee Board’s production and marketing activities. We were briefed on topics ranging from the varietals of coffee grown in the Philippines to the demand and supply situation of coffee in the country. As a coffee drinker, what struck me in the lecture – as trivial as it may seem - was what Chit Juan said that a three-cups-a day coffee drinker actually consumes in a year the fruits of twelve coffee trees.

Amadeo, Cavite
Our first stop was the Municipal Hall of Amadeo, Cavite, dubbed the country’s Coffee Town. We were shown the miniature model of the landscape of Amadeo, which boasts of about 4,000 hectares of coffee farms. Mayor Albert Ambagan, Jr. and Councilor Rene Tongson (also a member of the NCDB) were our gracious hosts. They briefed us on the plans of the predominantly coffee-growing town. We, afterwards, partook of the strong but fruity Kapeng Amadeo served in the municipal hall.

For our next stop, we left the comforts of the coaster, and boarded owner-type jeeps with customized hauling compartments at the back, obviously used to transport farm harvests around and outside town. It was a roller coaster ride, passing by some steep slopes, rugged terrain and worn-out wooden bridges, and we literally bit the dust and hang on to our dear lives all the way to lunch at The Barako Farm at Dagatan, Amadeo. The farm, owned by the family of Mayor Ambagan, has been planted with barako coffee trees by Figaro. Sumptuous lunch of adobo, pinakbet, tahong, kaldereta, and grilled pork chops, tropical fruits and buko drinks served inside an open nipa hut was a treat, indeed.

According to Councilor Tongson, they have recently been holding farm tours in Amadeo almost every week. That day, we actually saw more than ten buses of students from the Philippine Normal University. Seeing the students troop on foot like ants to the farms, we felt lucky to be riding the small jeeps to the farms.

At the Farms
We visited three coffee farms at BanayBanay, Halang, and Pangil – all in Amadeo. At high noon till late afternoon, we enjoyed cool, highland weather – one which, we were told, is conducive to growing coffee trees. The age of coffee trees we saw in the farms range from months-old young plants, to 50-year to century-old trees! The trunks and branches of the ancient trees, mainly of the robusta variety, are gnarled and dried, but still bearing globules of ripe coffee cherries. The farmers had just finished the first round of harvest this time of the year, but in the coffee branches we saw that there still remained many coffee cherries for the picking.

The altitude of Amadeo of 1,400 feet above sea level is good for robusta trees – as well as excelsa and liberica, although these two other varieties are not gaining ground as much as robusta because they are less commercially viable from a farmer’s point of view despite the fact that they fetch higher prices in the market. On the other hand, the arabica variety, which requires higher altitudes, is not suited for planting in Cavite.

The coffee farms are inter-cropping strips featuring at least two other cash crops – a combination of pineapple, watermelon, ampalaya, squash, tomato, eggplant, peanuts, sweet and hot pepper, and even banana (the smaller señorita variety).

From farm to farm, we passed by virtually one-way streets as half of its width are being used as drying patios for the coffee cherries. Even the neighboring towns we passed by are evidently coffee-growing communities as can be deduced from the similar usage of their streets.

Adopt-a-Farm
According to Mayor Ambagan, Amadeo used to have more hectares of land planted to coffee. A recent land-use survey shows that a significant hectarage of coffee farms have either been converted to commercial use or to planting other crops.

Wanting to preserve the traditional coffee-farming livelihood of Amadeo, as well as reconvert idle and underutilized lands into productive ones, the local government conceptualized the Adopt-a-Farm Program whereby private citizens and corporations all around the country are encouraged to lease coffee farms for P10,000 a hectare – with the lessor to shoulder the costs of developing and maintaining the farm in exchange for hopefully profitable harvests. The interest in the project is quite overwhelming. To date, total land area leased and tended under the program is 170 hectares, with Figaro as the one leasing the largest area.

Milling and Roasting Facilities
After the farms, we headed to the Beneficio Amadeo milling facility, just one of the twenty five millers in Cavite. We were shown by Nicky Matti, NCDB co-chairman and owner of the mill, how coffee beans are de-hulled, sized, and placed in jute sacks ready for delivery.

Capping the bean-to-brew tour was a trip to the nearby town of Silang, Cavite to visit Gourmet Farms’ coffee roasting facility. Gourmet is one of the pioneers in locally-branded coffee in the country. They supply coffee for some of the biggest quick-service restaurants today.

The major lesson in the coffee farm tour is that the coffee we enjoy drinking so much does not grow out of a cup, but comes a long way from highland farms to the mill, to the roasting facility, and then to the supermarkets or coffee shops.

More than a nature trip, the farm tour was indeed a delightfully un-conventional learning experience.

Related story: At Gourmet's