EDUCATING Filipinos and equipping coffee farmers with the right skills and financial resources are the two critical factors in sustaining the growth of the country’s coffee industry, a stakeholder said.
“Education is very important. We produce coffee, we need to appreciate what we have,” said Lloyd Erik Lim, a certified coffee Q grader and owner of Conlins Coffee Company, a full-service coffee company that offers roasted coffee and customized blends using beans sourced from all over the world, as well as coffee equipment.
According to Lim, the country has the potential to grow its coffee industry, but needs to push more in terms of educating the market and helping coffee farmers to become more productive.
“There is a market. But we need to increase education for both coffee farmers and entrepreneurs to boost expansion of local coffee shops in the country and eventually help coffee entrepreneurs to venture into real specialty coffees,” said Lim.
“If the market won’t understand the value of the coffee, they wouldn’t appreciate it,” he said.
Lim noted that the Philippine-grown Arabica is one of the best varieties around the world, which the country must exploit. The country sources coffee beans from Mt. Apo in Davao, Benguet and Sagada.
Lim opened in Cebu the Coffee Laboratory, located inside the Italian designer homeware brand store Allessi in the new wing of Ayala Center.
The Coffee Laboratory serves as the platform for coffee lovers to appreciate coffee—from farming, roasting, and brewing to its effects on wellness and the economy.
The Philippines used to be the world’s fourth biggest coffee exporter until market conditions changed from 1989 to 2002, the Department of Trade and Industry said.
The agency noted that out of the 65,000 metric tons of coffee consumed yearly, only 30,000 metric tons is produced from the local coffee industry and the rest is imported from countries like Indonesia and Vietnam.
Industry reports said that coffee ranks first among non-staple food, is the second most traded commodity next to oil, and the fifth most important agricultural product worldwide.
Some 149.26 million bags or 8.9 billion kilograms of coffee were consumed globally in 2014.