FEATURE:

Jack of the coffee trade: 

Better coffee with KMME

TALIBON, Bohol, September 25 (PIA)—Life has been good for 48 year old Jackeline Canastra, of Poblacion Balicu, Talibon, Bohol.

Born from a family whose father worked in Hawaii for 45 years, and herself a former international cruise ship crew, Jackeline has been used to a comfortable life, far less complicated than personally managing a small coffee shop along the national highway in a town where locals are so used to have three in one in plastic cups for coffee.

Her’s now is the light brew of the robusta, the unmistakable aroma of ground roasted bean brewing in some hidden expresso machine assaulting the sanity of coffee lovers who are in for the sip and relishing the taste while playing with the waft of imagination rising from the mug, inside a homely dimly lit shop.

“It has a huge pay,” she meant the job aboard the cruise ship, “but I was not happy,” she confessed.

In the Philippines, she tried as English tutor to Koreans and that was when she met a Korean coffee connoisseur and aficionada par excellence.

“She was my first mentor,” she humbly admitted as she timidly squirmed in her high stool during the causal talk.

“She goaded me to get into coffee, and it was weird because there was no other coffeeshop in Talibon,” she admitted, adding that their coffee is Food and Drugs Authority approved.

But, out of the Korean, who is now a business partner, Jackie, like any other coffee lover, soon got her nose into the homey aroma of roasted beans which she sources out from the farms in Bilar and way as far as Davao.

“Roasting has always been challenging. Sometimes, it is dependent on the weather, or the coffee if it’s over dried or humid, You are supposed to get a constant temperature but roasting on wood fires in the Korean way, is tricky.”

“One has to know the exact color… the time of roasting which could happen between 12 to 21 minutes, depending on the roasting conditions,” she volunteered the information haltingly while already hinting the complexity of the process to get a good aromatic brew, now filling the air-conditioned room.

From picking out the beans fresh from farms, to drying, and then roasting and brewing, Jackie may have become the consummate coffee jack of all trades.

“Our coffee is what coffee lovers call as fall city: it is a brew that is between dark and medium coffee.”

That started the PP Coffee, she went on.

“PP is Philippine Coffee, because it really is and it was tough because the pervading idea was coffee has to be imported.“

The coffeeshop here was not that kind where the young college students and hippies converge.

It is more of a small nook, which dispenses a very small amount of ground coffee everyday. But it was getting lawyers and judges as patrons.

But from her ground roasted beans, she supplies Panglao and some Cebu coffeeshops, she said.

Over the countless times she learned the fine art of roasting, her love for coffee turned into a passion that she could not close the shop, instead, opened a restaurant to sustain and keep the coffee brewer dripping.

“I had more of the supplying roasted or ground coffee from beans, that I need to come out with a brilliant packaging.”

That was when she tried asking help from the local Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Negosyo Center, when she started to rethink her being in a comfortable niche.

“I was invited to a Kapatid Mentor MicroEntrepreneur (KMME) Program, one I was supposed to politely refuse because I was tending the coffeeshop. It was one decision I would have regretted if I did not accept the offer,” she hinted an excitement she could not successfully hide.

Project KAPATID is an initiative of the DTI and the Philippine Center for Entrepreneurship (PCE) to help the country’s micro and small enterprises (MSEs).

It does this in three packages: Mentor ME (micro entrepreneurs) program, a coaching and mentoring approach where large corporations teach MSEs on different aspects of business operations, Adopt-an-SSF (Shared Service Facility) program, which aims to help micro entrepreneurs by providing them access to SSFs in their community and Inclusive Business (IB) model where MSEs are linked into large companies’ value chains.

“We were made to sign a commitment to attend all sessions, 12 of them,” she said.

Already the third Kapatid Mme Program in Bohol, Jackie’s group was supposed to be only for 25 slots, but 31 came and DTI could not refuse.

“Everyone signed up and I was in a way, forced to be there. After the first session, I know I was going to finish the 12 [sessions],” she declared.

“Then I said I have my comfortable niche and I am getting used to it, I have to stay here. But I learned the value of innovation among the first mentoring topics,” Jackie, now a disciple for KMMe bares.

“Innovate, be the first, be very unique, you have to grow if you want your life to grow, you have to innovate,” she recalled the most intense learning she got for the KMME sessions.

Already in her and the KMMEs third session, she has decided to open up the space beside her coffeeshop, to expand.

“See, my entrepreneurship grew,” she said as she tipped a mug of fresh brew to a sip.

“It is this simple and it is this complicated: Mindsetting; If you wish to be an entrepreneur, keep the mindset, and keep up to innovate,” she said as she promised to continue with the sessions and her support to local farmers.

For Jackeline and still several young Boholano entrepreneurs, a KMMe might just be the edge they need, and for her, she is not spending thousands for mentoring sessions when there is one for free. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)

Jackeline Canastra has found a comfortable niche in her coffee shop, but the DTI PCE KMME has shown her that globalization has to make her innovate or her business will be dead by competition. She, along with 30 other MSMEs get free mentoring from industry leaders with the KMME. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)