COFFEE is considered one of the most consumed beverages around the world next to water. In an October 2018 study conducted by a world’s insight exchange platform Cint on beverages consumed regularly in the Philippines, 70.25 percent Filipinos said they drink coffee regularly.
Dabawenya professional coffee grader and advocate Gina Ellorango agrees. But there is one challenge - we consume more than we produce.
“We are more of a coffee drinker and not a grower. We can only produce 20 percent and the remaining 80 percent of our coffee is imported from countries like Indonesia, Vietnam, and Laos,” she said adding majority of the coffee came from Mindanao.
This is one of the realities in the coffee industry in the Philippines, especially in Mindanao, that pushed the owner of Frog Kaffee and Roastery Gina Ellorango to learn about it and empower coffee farmers and consumers through education.
Ellorango was introduced to the coffee industry by her husband, coffee enthusiast Markus Ableitinger, and began Frog Kaffee and Roastery in 2015. It is the only coffee shop in Davao City that offers a third wave or the “specialty” coffees. They initially used coffee beans from other countries in their products. Realizing the expensive cost of the beans, the shipping time, and price, they were forced to look for locally-produced beans.
It led them to an association of coffee farmers in Mt. Apo which were then problematic about the quality of their yield. Several sacks of coffee beans were untouched because there were no interested buyers of their beans and it only cost P80 per kilo.
Gina and Markus figured out that what the farmers needed was the right post-harvest practices. They proposed to the farmers that they will buy the beans at P180 per kilo only if they will follow the right processes.
It eventually improved the quality of the farmers’ beans and were supplied to Frog Kaffee. In fact, other farmers like Marivic Dubria have been winning the Philippine Coffee Quality Competitions (PCQC). She has put Philippine coffee to global spotlight.
Ellorango said it goes to show that the Philippine coffee can compete with other countries and the demand for the Philippine coffee is high. Hence, it has potential in the world market.
However, the production remained a challenge.
“The highest [selling] price is P1,000 per kilo for the green beans. When green beans are roasted, the price will go up three or four times higher,” Ellorango explained, referring to graded high-quality coffee beans.
Despite the alluring price, she said the country is not yet ready to export in huge volume because of the shortage. The only way to surpass this challenge is to plant and plant more.
“Our coffee is world-class quality coffee pero yung yield natin hindi pa kaya. For the 80 percent shortage, we need two decades to cover if we plant [coffee trees] now,” she said.
“We focus more on planting and educating the consumers and the farmers. We are very fast-improving in the coffee industry. It's a very good impact. Andami din nating empty lands. We encourage them to plant because that is also reforestation yan,” she added.
Part of the services she offered is an affordable coffee processing training she called “Bean to Cup.” She is currently training her sixth batch of students.
“We built up [the] coffee academy because I want to spread the knowledge I learned from my training. And through sharing my knowledge, I also learned more,” she said.
“[The goal of] my academy, from bean to cup, is for the consumers to understand where did bean come from, how it is really processed before it goes to the cup, how healthy it is, how much is the demand,” she added.
She hoped that through these personal initiatives, many people, especially the youth, would venture into farming and agribusiness, encourage the farmers to plant more, and for consumers to appreciate the overall sustainability of local coffee.