Yesterday, I had the pleasure of checking out the Coffee Break Festival at the Glorietta 4, featuring several coffee merchants and their wares. This particular festival features purely Philippine-grown coffee from different regions, as well as the merchants’ own blends and varieties.
The last time I was here, I was only starting to get into the art of coffee drinking, so I really didn’t do much but load up on the free coffee (hey, who wouldn’t?). This time, I made sure to savor each and every cup of coffee available and to properly review them for your perusal.
Before I get into it, let me just give you a short primer on Philippine coffee. The Philippines grows four varieties of commercially viable coffee, namely Arabica, Robusta, Excelsa, and Liberica, better known locally as Barako/Baraco. Similar to it’s neighbors in the SE Asia region, Philippine grown coffees exhibit flavors ranging mostly from citrusy to earthy (although not quite as robust as the Sumatra and Sulawesi varieties), as well as coffee with fruity notes and the rarer kind that exhibits mild, spice and herbal undertones.
So, let’s get to it!
Siete Baracos Coffee
The coffee that the people from Siete Baracos coffee were brewing at the time was their Blackgold variety. It was a nice, medium-bodied coffee with low acidity, berry and mild citrus notes and very subtle earthy finish, but ultimately ordinary coffee; many other coffees from Batangas and Lipa share the same characteristics, and the Blackgold offering didn’t have much to distinguish itself from the pack.
It wasn’t bad, but nothing really special here.
Gourmet’s Coffee
I’ve been seeing Gourmet’s coffee around for some time now, and while I can’t quite be sure of it, I’ve heard that they used to grow their coffee (as well several other things) organically (I’m now slapping myself for not even bothering to ask them about it!).
Anyway, they had several varieties of coffee available, simply named Robusta, Mountain Grown, and Batangas Baraco, respectively. At the time I was at their booth, they were brewing their Robusta variety (all the merchants brew just 1 variety at a time).
Their Robusta coffee exhibited nice acidity, a medium-full body with earthy flavor and citrus notes, and finishes with a mild, earthy zest.
I was egging them to brew me up a batch of their Mountain Grown coffee, but to no avail. Oh well.
The Coffee Beanery
I tasted The Coffee Beanery’s Cravings Blend, which was a medium roasted coffee of blended Arabica and Robusta beans from the northern regions of Benguet and Ilocos, served up to as an Americano. As such, it had a nice crema and a wonderful, very pronounced nutty aroma and flavor.
This was by far the best tasting coffee that I had tried in the exhibit; these guys know what they’re doing!
Still, I would have been really interested to compare how the Cravings blend would have tasted as a regular drip coffee.
Continental Coffee / Batangas Harvest Coffee
Continental Coffee offers up two dark-roasted varieties: An Arabica and Robusta blend, and a pure Baraco offering in either a strong or mild variety.
I sampled their milder Baraco coffee, which exhibited a nice, winey flavor with cherry notes, very similar to the coffee from Amadeo that I wrote about a while back, albeit this one had a more pleasant medium body.
It doesn’t have much in the way of acidity, so the winey flavor tends to stay in your mouth for a while; I’m not sure if this is a desirable trait for some people, but as for me, I’m not too much of a fan of this one because of that. It gets old quickly for me, is what I’m trying to say.
Monk’s Blend
Monk’s Blend offers a medium roasted Arabica and Robusta blend from the Bukidnon region. They had no other varieties, simply the same blend as either whole coffee beans or bagged, pre-ground coffee.
Theirs is a full-bodied coffee, with a very nice nutty and milky flavor, with a subtly sweet caramel finish, and nicely balanced acidity (as such, the flavor lingers for only about 3-5 seconds, enough for you to savor it but not enough to make you tire of it for too soon). I liked it; prolly the best tasting coffee next to The Coffee Beanery’s Cravings Blend.
However, one thing ticked me off about these guys. One of the attendants tried to sell me the pre-ground variety, and included in on of his “selling points” was that it had a shelf life of one year. One freaking year. Coffee grounds. Still fresh, he says. All the while expounding the fact that they do not use any sort of preservatives.
Are you freaking kidding me?
Coffee is food. Food spoils after some time. And somebody please correct me if I have it all wrong, but ground coffee spoils after a week in open air and a little after two months when it’s sealed, does it not? Even when it’s frozen, what I know is that coffee cannot last for as long as a year without preservatives and still be fresh and taste good. I just cannot imagine it, even when you use a vacuum-sealed bag or container. So far, I’ve asked a handful of baristas about this and they concurred that it was just not possible.
So, while their coffee tasted quite good, minus points for using chemical preservatives – and for that guy trying to make me believe his bullshit.
Cafe de Lipa
Last but not the least, Cafe de Lipa. They offer two varieties, mainly a dark roasted Baraco of the same name and a medium roasted Batangas Blend.
For this one, I had their Cafe de Lipa Baraco, served up as an Americano. It had a thin-medium body with a winey flavor and cherry notes. Similar to Continental Coffee’s offering that I tasted, but less desirable (in my opinion), due to the thinner mouthfeel.
Besides the merchants I took to and those that I didn’t, there were other booths that I didn’t bother to visit, namely Figaro, Nescafe, and Dunkin’ Donuts. I already wrote about my dislike for Figaro’s drip coffee (although I do like their espresso-based drinks), so I didn’t bother with them. Dunkin’ Donuts has already gone the drain a few years ago, so you can’t expect a donut shop who can’t even sell decent donuts to provide decent coffee (you oughta see the donuts they sell here, they are damn small!). And Nescafe? Well… forget it.
What I do wish the merchants did was offer more than one coffee variety at a time, or at least a drip and an espresso brew at once or the same time. It makes it harder to compare offerings from different merchants when you also have to factor in different brewing methods. Anyway, those gripes do not really diminish the event in any large way whatsoever.
All in all it was a pretty good event. Not without it’s shortcomings, but it was good; I got to sample a wider range of coffees from the Philippines as well as revisit old flavors, all in one place! Of course, tasting coffee in a mall exhibition cannot replace the experience of going to different coffee growing regions and savoring the coffee in their own native context.