one filipino dish a week

This is the stuff that keeps a lot of us going in the morning. Coffee. Some people are coffee purists. Some people are the Starbucks kind. Northeast people (of the US that is) are the Dunkin’ Donuts kind.  But I suspect most people don’t even know a lot about the coffee that they’re drinking. And neither did I. I didn’t even know the different kinds of coffee. I just knew of the places that there are certain climates that make the good coffee. What I found out was that just like wine there’s quite a few people that obsess about their coffee.

Here’s a couple of things I learned about coffee:

• There’s 4 major varieties Arabica, Robusta, Excelsa, and Liberica (aka barako). I’m sure most people have heard of Arabica because that pretty much dominates the market (i.e. your Starbucks).
• Buy coffee beans and keep them vacuum sealed. Oxygen breaks down the coffee and makes it go bad. And it goes bad quicker once it’s ground.

Filipinos are definitely coffee drinkers. I remember hearing about kapeng barako when I was growing up and I wanted to find out more about the Philippines and coffee. The Philippines being strategically placed in the Pacific was a major hub of commerce back in the day and like a lot of things the Philippines was once a major player in coffee industry. Now, Brazil has taken over the coffee world and produces a substantial percentage of the world’s coffee. Certainly just another blow to the once leading economy of Southeast Asia. The worst thing is that most Filipinos living in the Philippines don’t even know about the  once thriving coffee production in the Philippines because they’re too wrapped up trying out the trendy imported places (i.e. Starbucks, Seattle’s Best, and Gloria Jeans). But that’s starting to dig deeper into the Filipino identity crisis and self-loathing. Let’s not go down that path.

During my trip to the Philippines, I picked up a book called Kapihan. Although this is published by Nescafe and they sure do push their product in this book, I still like how they captured a good chunk of the Filipino coffee story. It shows how the simple coffee bean brings people together. I also noticed that Filipinos drink instant coffee and they buy it in small amounts. By small amounts I mean 1 serving right before their drink it in the morning from their neighbor’s sari-sari store. This makes sense because of the cash flow problems that families face everyday. Nescafe is the brand of choice so they did a really good job in marketing to the Filipinos.

While in the Philippines, I asked around where I can get my hands on some kapeng barako. And all fingers pointed to Batangas. Thankfully, my best friend Jopey had a roommate that was in Batangas for the weekend and brought down 1 kilo barako beans! I’m very appreciative of that.

So what is barako? The word barako is some sort of male animal. My Tagalog isn’t great but barako definitely has connotations of masculinity. The coffee is called barako because of it’s strong taste and for the fact that the beans are bigger than the other varieties. This coffee is unlike anything that I’ve tasted and I love it! I’m certainly not a coffee expert but I know what tastes good to me. It’s certainly bold but it doesn’t have the acidity that I’ve tasted in other coffees which I assume contains Arabica beans.

Unfortunately, there’s no place that I know of that you can buy barako coffee from here in the US. I did find this website though http://www.gotbarako.com/. I haven’t bought anything from it yet so I can’t tell you either way. I’ll buy some when my supply is done and I’ll update.

Eat Filipino Food!