65 000 metric tons -that is the amount of coffee drank by folks in Philippines!

by chee Leng (on coffee makers)
(Singapore)

Some time ago, I wrote an article about Starbucks Via and wonder why the second place in Asia that they choose to launch is Philippines (after Japan), now I know the answer.

Via Launch in Philippines

I was reading an article about it when I stumbled on the amount of coffee that the folks in Philippines are drinking! 65 000 metric tons, that is mountain loads of coffee!

By the way, Philippines also produce their own coffee beans, but only 395.5 metric tons, and you can imagine how much not enough that is.

The article that I have read is about how government is going to support the coffee farming in a big way and it is also changing the direction.

Similar to Vietnam, Philippines main coffee crop are the Robusta, and the agency has the intention to change it to Arabica, which can of course fetch a higher price in the market.

They have the land and they are even being IMO certified as a Arabica Coffee plantation, so it should not be difficult for them to move in the Arabica direction.

Oh, and with P50 million given by the government to assist this industry, we can probably look forward to some interesting Arabica from the Philippines!

My two cents on this is if Philippines would to become a major exporter of coffee beans, it would in some way curb the increasing hike of coffee prices (note: at the time of writing, the coffee pricing is going down because of technical adjustment, on the long run, it would still be going up due to the bad weathers affecting South America).

The boost to supply would alleviate the demand and supply issue that the world is facing for the past two years, that lead to the ever increase of coffee price.

Hope Philippines produce it fast enough so that we do not have to pay more for our cuppa!