Coffee: Everyone’s favorite legal stimulant
Who would think that one of the best — if not the best — coffee one could ever have, started in a small town in San Juan, La Union? Founders Lorenzo “Kiddo” Cosio, together with friends Mia Sebastian and Sly Samonte, who was a pioneer of the “third wave coffee” movement in Manila, opened El Union Coffee in 2013.
“Our friend Mia Sebastian first brought up the idea of a starting a coffee shop, together with our friend Sly Samonte,” shares Kiddo. “August of that year, we had put together some savings and coffee equipment. By October 2013, we had opened the first iteration of El Union in what was once a tiny bigasan the size of a parking space. I was the original barista, and continue to do bar shifts, eight years later.”
Following the birth of their daughter Cadence in 2011, Kiddo and his wife Amy, who are both surfers, decided to permanently move to La Union in 2012. Amy resigned from teaching in UP Diliman, while Kiddo did most of his work online.
They have taken Filipino coffee on tour internationally several times, the most recent being a Philippine Coffee Tour around the United Kingdom a few months before the pandemic. Prior to that, they highlighted Philippine coffee at culinary events like Madrid Fusion, and tourism events like ITB Berlin and World Travel Market London for the “It’s More Fun in the Philippines” campaign led by Secretary Berna Romulo-Puyat and the Department of Tourism.
But most importantly, 365 days a year, they sell local coffee varieties to a domestic audience via their Surftown cafe and online store.
And what is Kiddo’s favorite coffee? “In terms of overall impact, I love the story and flavor of our northern Filipino coffee varieties that speak of social progress for Filipino farmers.”
Here today, Kiddo shares 10 things we should know about our coffee:
Coffee has community-building potential. That’s my favorite thing about it. Our little company in La Union focuses on and proudly buys local coffee from farmer-producers in the nearby Cordilleras, just a short drive away. We deal directly with those communities, without engaging middlemen, ensuring that the people who make the coffee great benefit the most. If you can afford quality coffee, and social justice is close to your heart, consider supporting coffee roasters that are transparent about their relationships with farmers.
It is humanity’s favorite fruit. Coffee is not actually a bean, but a fruit! What we drink is a suspension, emulsion, and solution made up of little pieces of coffee seed (like a cherry seed) in water. Through washing, drying, fermentation, and roasting of that fruit seed, we get the product that many of us love.
Seeing coffee as a fruit broadens our expectations beyond the more common deep, dark, and bitter attributes we have long accepted, and includes the spectrum of light fruity, juicy, and even pleasantly acidic properties natural to this amazing fruit.
Coffee is graded on a 100-point scale. Coffee around 60 points is “commodity grade” coffee, while coffee above 80 points is “specialty grade.” A specialty coffee that is roasted well will taste sweeter, cleaner, and more complex. It will also require much more labor to produce, justifying the higher price tag.
Coffee goes well with Pinoy food. I enjoy drinking high-end coffee alongside distinctly Pinoy foods like danggit and other dried fish. I’ve recently discovered that filter coffee tastes amazing after eating a plate of paksiw na isda; and on my to-do list is a bagnet or itag pairing.
Pairings are great because they modulate and “complexify” a tasting experience, literally opening our minds. Explore! Remove preconceived notions of what you should and shouldn’t do with coffee and food. A lot of “tasting notes” and experiences are defined by wealthier cultures in the Global North. But there is a Filipino coffee story that we get to write, around our ways, views, cuisine, and tasting experiences. Be proud!
You can get a completely different coffee experience by using different kinds of water. Coffee as a drink is mostly water. I personally prefer certain mineral waters, but find purified water acceptable and more affordable. I avoid distilled water when brewing; its more acidic pH level isn’t my thing.
Caution: Coffee is an addictive substance. Historically, coffee shops have been places where artists and thinkers developed great ideas that have helped progress society. I think this is partly because of the psychoactive properties in coffee that enable us to be more imaginative, sociable, and mentally organized. I love a cafe that is bustling with meaningful conversation, catalyzed by everyone’s favorite legal stimulant.
Your experience is valid. Here’s how I brew without much gear: Dose three to four tablespoons of medium-ground coffee into a pint-sized container. Fill the container with water straight from the boil. Stir the coffee lightly to saturate grounds. Open Spotify and play two of your favorite songs, or time eight minutes. Watch the grounds sink. Skim off any coffee on the surface with a spoon. Pour very, very lightly into your cup without agitating the grounds, leaving them at the bottom of the container. If you don’t have nice coffee gear, you can still make a yummy brew. Remember to buy quality coffee, and grind fresh if possible: this will up the chances of you getting a good brew.
Domestic consumption will save the day. To put Pinoy coffee on the global map, Pinoys need to put it in our coffee makers. Due to modest production, high quality “specialty grade” Filipino coffee can be expensive, when compared with coffee produced in South America, Africa, or even our Southeast Asian neighbors; this limits our competitiveness internationally. But it also sets the stage for a great domestic story, one with much smaller environmental footprints, too.
Rest your coffee! A lot of our whole-bean coffee customers want their coffee really fresh — and that it is! However, it is good to rest super-fresh coffee, and allow gases built up during the roasting process to exit the coffee, resulting in better extraction during brewing. I rest my coffee beans a minimum of five days, expecting the flavor to peak around the two-week mark. Try to buy coffee with the roast date published on the package, so you can have more consistent brews. 10 Coffee roasters and shops that I really like: Yardstick, The Curator, and Habitual in Makati; Each in Alabang; El Kapitan in Greenhills; Crema and Cream, and Chapter in Quezon City, and — special mention — LICK Palawan run by my friend, mentor and partner Sly Samonte. Keep the independent movement alive with your support for great local coffee shops and roasters!
Of course, above all, I love our home shop, El Union Coffee in San Juan, La Union. We are surviving the pandemic thanks to our awesome Surftown neighbors and visitors, and all those who order bags of coffee via our website. We deliver an array of local and foreign coffee origins and blends nationwide, and accept all major cards and PayPal. You can order via https://www.elunioncoffee.com/ and your
* order will arrive in two to three days. (We welcome your suggestions and comments. Please e-mail me at monsrt@gmail.com. Follow me on Instagram @monsromulo.)