It lifts your spirit, increases your heart rate, pumps up the adrenaline and tastes so darn good. It's addictive but it's not a drug! it's the world's best loved brews -- coffee!

Popularly known as the "happy cup", coffee plays a major role in nearly every Filipino's life. While coffee growers all over the country rely on the "magic" beans for a living, many of us depend on it for our caffeine fix.

Even the young ones are hooked into it (proof of which are the burgeoning number of cafes in the metropolis). These young "baristas" won't settle for the same old brewed coffee with brown sugar and skimmed milk. Instead, they've got flavors to choose from -- choco syrup, crushed ice and whipped cream or perhaps, a drop of liquor.

But do they really know their coffee? Do they know that the coffee beans they loved dearly is, sadly, facing extinction?

We were part of a media group invited by Figaro Foundation Corp. on a Benguet Tour dubbed "Coffee 102."

The tour is part of Figaro's continuous efforts to generate public awareness about the plight of a "dying" coffee bean (barako).

They aim also to adopt coffee-growing locales in Benguet where the arabica variety is grown, and to stimulate the local coffee-growing sector.

We travelled 6 hours, mostly on well paved roads through Tarlac and La Union with pit stops at gasoline stations. We arived in Baguio City, at the end of a long drive through the narrow and zigzag roads, passing along a few rice terraces.

The group was billeted in Camp John Hay Manor Hotel where a bonfire and barbecue dinner was waiting for us in front of the Filling Station, courtesy of CJH Development Corp. senior VP Shean Bedi.

We were welcomed by Figaro CEO Chit Juan and her "angels" Ria Juan, Zarah Perez and Joh Clavecilla, Amor Maclang and hubby Brad Geisler, Reena Francisco, business dev't manager Roel Perez, Filling Station's Joseph Bedi and organic farming consultant Patrick Belisario. Needless to say, we had caffeine overload as coffee overflowed that night courtesy of, what else, Figaro.

Chit's angels: Ria Juan,
Joh Clavecilla, Zarah Perez

Next morning, we boarded a van, heard mass at the Baguio Cathedral and headed to Benguet State University (BSU), a dynamic and a model education institution, in La Trinidad, Benguet.

The university boasts of approximately 10-hectare coffee farm that grows coffee of both the arabica and robusta types. Benguet is a constant producer of high-grade mountain arabica, the coffee bean variety noted for its complex flavor.

Hardest to grow because of topographic needs (it grows best at altitudes of 1000 meters and above sea level), arabica ranks highest and is what most coffee boutiques serve worldwide.

According to Figaro CEO Chit Juan, there is a need to rehabilitate the existing arabica in the region.

"Arabica is presently grown on a backyard scale. Its coffee production needs to be propped up by enhancing Benguet coffee growers’ technical knowledge and support mechanisms for farmers to have better production," explains Chit.

That is basically what the BSU, under the leadership of Rogelio D. Colting, is doing now. The university is encouraging the natives to plant more coffee trees not only as a form of livelihood but also to preserve their culture.

Chit likewise informed BSU president Rogelio Colting, Prof. Valentino Macanes and Prof. Mario Marquez, that Figaro is willing to help encourage farmers plant more trees through talks and seminars and provide much needed support by way of a niche product that can fetch a higher profit margin in the marketplace.

"A monitoring team will be deployed to monitor if the farmers follow the guidelines for growing organic coffee beans. We will buy the good beans from the farmers at a higher rate. Going organic is one of the programs we’ve incorporated in reviving the coffee culture in the Philippines," explains Chit.

Owned and operated by Evelyn Bond, the restaurant can accommodate 20 diners. However, Eve requires clients to make a 12–hour reservation to give her adequate time to prepare the food.

Eve has prepared a steaming bowl of summer squash soup with herbs and a glass of pineapple mint cooler. It was followed by a huge serving of lettuce salad. Served on a huge plate, the salad consists of 11 varieties of freshly picked lettuce, raisins, cashew nuts and Caesar dressing.

For the main course, we had herbed chicken and pasta with wheat bread and grilled beef with red organic rice.

Eve said that the food gets its flavor from the homegrown herbs she uses. For the salad, they try to gather the lettuce before 7 a.m. so the sweetness of the leaves is retained.

"Because once the moisture evaporates, there’s more potassium left in the leaves and it becomes bitter," notes Eve.

At the farm: Men Zone's Judith Juntilla and
Elias Guerrero, Jr., Chit Juan, PDI's Alysson
Lopez, LSR, Phil. Star's Julie Alegre, Profs. Val Mascanes and Mario Marquez,
Figaro's Patrick Bellisario and Aztra.

The next day, we visited another coffee farm situated in the higher slopes of La Trinidad. Owned by the Villalons, the 9-hectare coffee farm is cared for by their "katiwala" Aling Virgie Casamero.

It was a 5 minutes walk going down the slopes where Aling Virgie lives. Sure that was easy if you’re a mountaineer but for urbanites, it took us 10 minutes… slowly but surely.

Clad in farmer’s garb, Aling Virgie had just finished sorting out the coffee beans harvested two weeks ago.

She informed us that it normally takes three years for a coffee tree to bear fruit. Four to-five-year-old trees bear more fruits compared to older trees. In fact, she said that the yield lessens once the tree turned 10 to 12 years old.

"Here, what we do is we try to rejuvenate old trees by cutting its branches," she explains.

According to Aling Virgie, most farmers in Benguet are planting less of the bean and are shifting to other crops.

"So we are encouraging our children to help in the farm after school. During harvest time, they are the ones who climb the trees and pick the fruit. We give them R50 for every four cans they will fill," Aling Virgie relates.

The beans are then scattered on a huge sack mat to let it dry. It normally takes 20 days before the beans dry up because of the cold climate in Benguet.

Aling Virgie and her sister pound the coffee beans.

"We bite the beans to check if it’s dry. Then, we pound it, using a big, wooden mortar and pestle. Sorting of the beans is done before roasting," Aling Virgie explains while shaking the "bilao."

The beans are sorted out either by hand, or by winnowing.

"After sorting, we store the beans in sacks, ready for roasting. We enjoy the whole process. It’s our form of exercise," she adds.

From the coffee farm, we proceeded to the strawberry and flower farms also in Benguet. Too bad all the flowers had been harvested for the Panagbenga Festival.

The coffee tour ended at the Baguio Market where we visited the stores of Baguio’s famous coffee traders — the Garcias and the Umalis. Their wares are hot commodities in Baguio City. Lunch was served at the newly-opened Figaro in SM City Baguio. Located on the 3rd floor, the coffee shop has an al fresco area overlooking the city.

"Coffee 102" is part of Figaro Coffee Company’s thrust of promoting indigenous coffee cultures in the Philippines.

As it enters its 11th year, the premiere coffee company remains steadfast in its thrusts of improving the lot of Philippine coffee farmers, sparking interest for the local coffee culture and delivering a jolt to agricultural communities.

On the road to Amadeo, Cavite for the annual coffee farm tour courtesy of Figaro Coffee, no Mozart is on the sound system to accompany us on the one-and-a-half hour ride to the outskirts of Mega Manila. Why Mozart? It's just that we are reminded of the guy's music, finding out that we are on our way to Amadeo or Amadeus, with or without a seatbelt, but powered nonetheless by the early coffee on a wobly Saturday morning complete with hangover and such, sipped at take-off point along C. Palanca Street in Makati. Not classical music, but what could well be imagined as sifting through the mic, is no other than the voice of Figaro director Chit Juan, briefing the kind listeners with an everyman's history of coffee.

The voice, Chit Juan's voice though, is real, and it is not singing Don Giovanni, but rather telling her audience that yes, in the time of our ancestors the Philippines was number four top producer of coffee worldwide, which distinction has considerably eroded through the years, to the point that we are no longer self-sufficient in the crop, we have to import about half the stuff, but never the mind, we're making inroads to address that, and soon enough, she assures, through the help of organic farming and the indefatigable National Coffee Development Board's 10-year plan, we'll be able to be a major player again in the trade of the blessed bean. Among other tidbits she mentions is that the world's largest consumers of coffee are, in descending order, the United States, Germany and Japan, three first world and highly industrialized countries that, whether or not coincidentally, were major players in the Pacific War.

Must have been something in the beverage that made these countries get back to the order of business, and in fact helped them become among the world's most robus economies. Per capita, the heaviest coffee drinkers are the northern Europeans, where the cold nordic weather perhaps gives them little choice but to warm themselves, budget-style. As for coffee producers, there's the world champion Brazilians, who also happen to excell in football, also known as soccer, but a coffee bean by any other name remains a coffee bean, and the country that gave the world Pele, Ronaldo, Rivaldo, Ronaldhino and Rider sandals also produces the most coffee.

Coffee from bean to brew: a dainty coffee bloom

Number two, as we are to learn later in the day from Amadeo town councilor and coffee board member Rene Tongson, is upstart Vietnam, whose people, with a burst of energy after the war, planted nearly available space of arable land with the crop. Somewhere at midpoint on the road to Amadeo there is still no Mozart, rather organic consultant PAtrick Belisario switching places with Chit in our two-coaster party, this time to further enlighten us on the differences between organic and traditional farming, and the clear benefits of the former in terms of sustainable health-conscious agriculture in the long run. Even then Patrick is quick to point out that chemicals are not always needed to get rid of pests or blight, as recall the heyday of Philippine coffee farmingwas when farmers relied mainly on the natural guides and signs, and the act and ritual of preparing the soil for the crop all the way to planting, and the patient wait for the harvest, was calendared on the good old fashioned farmer's almanac.

"When there are pests in the crop, you study the extent of the damage and devise natural ways to get rid of this," Patrick says, and not by bombarding it with insecticide. THe use of copmpost and other wastes is also better than industrial strength fertilizer to ensure a bumper - not monster - crop, he says.

The first tour stop is at a traditional farm in Barangay Loma, where Dr. Alejandro Mojica of Cavite State University informally discusses traditional coffee farming methods, how Cavite farmers want to adopt the methods used in Mindanao (Sultan Kudarat province is top producer of coffee with Cavite only second, although in terms of municipalities Amadeo is tops, according to Councilor Tongson), while Mindanao farmers in turn want to use Cavite methods.

In the farm we visit there is what is called inter-cropping, or the planting of other crops while waiting for the coffee trees to reach the age of productivity - about three years. So there's also peanuts in this farm, and a barrel of boiled legumes is soon enough presented cowboy-style to the tour participants, the nilagang mani having been grown organically of course.

Coffee can be inter-cropped with peanuts
as this farm in Amadeo demonstrates

Asked if the organically grown peanuts tasted any different from the ordinary ones, Dr. Mojica says perhaps the greatest difference is psychological, before deferring to Belisario, who says the bottomline is that the orgaincally grown crop is healthier, and so reaps benefits not only for the environment but also for the psyche. Mojica also admits that organic farms are labor-intensive, as it takes five people to take charge of a hectare as compared to the usual two per hectare. THis results in organically grown products fetching a steeper price, as farmers would have to be rewarded for steering clear of the genetically modified stuff.

On the whole we could say that organically grown peanuts do taste sublty sweeter, or it might be our taste buds doing subtle tricks. There is a coffee farm we visit where we get to see up close the bean ripening on the branch, and learn posthaste that a coffee tree's average years of productivity would be 60. But after every seven or nine years, a tree has to be prined almost to the stump, to ensure another cycle of growth and bountiful harvest. and when trees reach the age of 40 in any farm, then the land has to be gradually replanted so that the crop would not run out.

Afterwards it is on to a post-harvest facility with Amadeo Tourism Office's Richard Lumandas, where, as the itinerary says, we can "witness the delicate process behind your everyday cup of coffee".

In a somewhat elevated protion of land where the air is distinctly cooler, the newly harvested berries are laid out to dry under the sun, a similar sight of which we see on the roadside about town and on concrete driveways; the residents arereally true-blue coffee producers.

After two weeks the now somewhat blackened berries are separated and laid to dry some more in another prtion of the facility, and henceforth to a kind of winnowing machine where the bean is further reduced to nearly granule form ready for transport to market.

Wide awake in coffee town, the participants
of the Figaro Coffee Tour pose for a family photo

We might have missed a step or two in this process, as there were at least three different sites where the coffee was laid out, with varying degrees of dryness. Then what follows is easily the best part of the tour - an al fresco lunch of fried tilapia, meatballs, kare-kare on a hillside of a pilot barako farm, for we are informed that the coffee board's concentration would be the planting of barako trees organically, hopefully to yield enough produce to carve out a niche in the world market by 2012. For even by then we would not be self-sufficient in coffee, if the program holds up we would still be importing five to ten percent of our coffee consumption, give or take a few percentage points for margin of error.