Cordillera Coffee Experience: The Story Behind Their Coffees

Wazzup Pilipinas!

I attended an event at Cordillera Coffee or Cordicoffee’s advocacy, The Coffee AID Jam after braving traffic from a tourism conference in BGC. It was a night of homegrown music and coffee featuring independent musician Tao Aves and Ukelele Manila ambassadors.

Cordillera Coffee serves organically and highland grown pure Arabica coffee from Kalinga and Benguet. It has a unique taste due to the rich soil and unpolluted environment of the Cordillera region, they also have the exotic civet (alamid) coffee which is well-known in the region for strong aroma and good taste. If you are in the area it is worth the trip, they have good concoctions and great dishes such as house specialties, pastas, sandwiches, and toasts. Well-loved dishes include Chef Gene Gonzalez' Cordillera Risotto and new menu item Pinoy Kaya Toast, and home baked goodies like the Cordi tsokolate brownies and tsokasuy (chocolate with cashew) cookies, and their Tablea Arabica cupcakes.

One of the very reason why I attended is that, I’m an avid supporter of our local artists, advocacies, indigenous cultures and products and social enterprises. I heard from cordicoffee volunteers the sad fate of many cordillera coffee growers, some are exploited by businessman and not really getting the fair share, and the hardships of growing coffee in the mountains specially during rainy seasons. Coffee AID advocates fair trade and help support local coffee growers. The event is also the perfect time to sign up as a volunteer for their outreach activities like coffee tree-planting, harvest and processing, as well as community workshops.

Proceeds of that day's sales will go to the Coffee AID workshop fund for the children of coffee farmers, so everyone is encouraged to try all the delicious coffee concoctions, enjoy the goodness of good music and coffee.

The musicians Tao Aves and Ukelele Manila are amazing and passionate artists, I haven’t seen that dedication and passion with some other local independent artists, they played popular songs and some original compositions. I think they will be the next big thing in the music industry.

Cordillera Coffee is located at G/F Llanar Building, Xavierville Ave. Loyola Heights, Quezon City. A map to the venue is available at http://bit.ly/cordicoffeemap.

Wazzup Pilipinas is one of their online media partners.

For inquiries about the Coffee AID volunteer program and cafe reservations, email coffeeaid@gmail.com or call / SMS 0927.4775945.


Contributed by Ronnie Cruz Bernardo