Handpicked berries, key to
good priced farm-coffee
CORTES, Bohol Oct 17 (PIA)—But, did you know that the coffee beans you are selling in the markets at a measly sum could actually sell high had these been picked right?
In fact, Bohol Coffee Development Council focal person and Department of Trade and Industry trade specialist Blair Panong admits, the current direction is to make sure farmers know how to make good quality out of the product, so that they can make up for the price.
Panong as well as the notable Boholano “duke of coffee,” Duke P. Miñoza, who owns the largest coffee plantation here in Bohol came to the Kapihan sa Pagkapihan sa PIA, to discuss prospects of the coffee industry here.
“Ripe berries have to be handpicked, one by one, making sure those not properly ripe yet are not touched as yet, or those with fungus are kept separated from good berries and burned to stop contaminating the good berries and the plantation,” hinted Miñoza, whose Café Nueva Vida from Buenaventurada Farms in Carmen is now becoming a premier local blend in most coffee shops here.
“Coffee industry in Bohol has been a century old, and the Philippines is among the map where coffee could be grown,” said Panong who added that “he could still recall market days then when people still trade sacks of coffee beans,” one he could not see now.
For whatever reason coffee trading was lost, many presumed it is because the buying price is so low.
A plant that is at home in forest floors, coffee being among the trees that thriver well under shades, is an ideal plant for multiple cropping, especially when planted together with cash crops, bared Miñoza, who has bananas and other easily convertible to cash crops as his plantation intercrops.
With good and proper nurture, coffee can already fruit by the third year, and fruits between October to March, after which the trees can be pruned if only to make sure it does not grow so tall to cause harvesting issues, he hinted.
Coffee is a commodity that is graded internationally, Miñoza pointed out, further explaining that one can only hand-pick the berries that are rightly ripe, leaving those about to turn bright red for the next day’s harvest.
Such is because, putting in unripe beans with the ripe ones will affect the quality of the beans as a whole and this is where the sour taste comes when the beans are dried processes and brewed.
In the Philippines, as with the coffee planted in the lower levels above sea level, Bohol coffee are mostly of the Robusta variety, a coffee with a stronger, harsher and more bitter taste, with grainy or rubbery overtones and packs a good caffeine content.
Arabica which likes to grown in higher elevations, tends to have a smoother, sweeter taste, with flavor hints of chocolate and sugar, fruits or berries.
Both Panong and Miñoza who owns a coffee bean processing fixture bared this, further explaining that, if only green berries are harvested with ripe berries, this does not get one a good coffee, and that could well be the basis for the lousy price.
On this, Panong said the DTI along with the Bohol Coffee Development Council has organized training seminars for farmers to gain technical information and skills in coffee growing, product conversion training to make local coffee supply sustainable even for the already growing Bohol café markets. (rahchiu/PIA-7/Bohol)
RIPE BERRIES QUALITY CONTROL. With the task of getting the best beans to be dried and processed, Buenaventurada Farms in Carmen employ women in the barangay to sort out and categorize the handpicked beans, allowing the inferior berries to float to separate them from the good quality. With this practice, good quality beans will fetch higher price, as this consumer product is graded internationally, says Bohol “Duke of Coffee,” Duke Minoza. (rahchiu/PIA-7/Bohol)
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