The staging of the 6th La Trinidad Coffee Festival recognized the efforts of the coffee farmers in the capital town of Benguet.
Municipal Agriculturist Nida Organo said the activity on Feb. 27, 28, and March 1 was celebrated to encourage coffee farmers in the municipality to continue producing quality coffee beans.
One of the highlights of the festival is the search for the best coffee producer and the coffee cupping champion in the town.
Alan Canam from Shilan was hailed as this year’s best coffee producer while Rodyio Tubal from Wangal won the best cup in taste during the cupping competition.
Canam was declared the winner for expanding his coffee production not only with his old coffee trees but also with his new coffee-bearing trees.
Of the 1,815 coffee trees Canam tends, it produces a total harvest of 850 kilos.
Organo said the Municipal Agriculture Office has opened the competition to the seven coffee organizations in the municipality, which endorsed one coffee farmer for the competition. The search committee then validated the documents submitted by the participants.
Meanwhile, Tubal scored the highest rating at 84.75 percent that made an impression among the local cuppers or Q graders that judged the entries for the cupping event participated by 52 coffee farmers from the barangays.
This means Tubal’s coffee is considered a specialty coffee, which is a coffee that scores higher than 80 points on a 100-point scale by a certified coffee taster or by a licensed grader (Q grader).
The scoring is based on 10 attributes and defects of the coffee, thus the higher the score, the better the coffee is.
“On the cupping competition, we want to encourage the farmers to practice their post-harvest handling until they are able to produce the green beans through proper storage and processing. It means the coffee beans must be cared for in every stage in order to come up with the best tasting coffee,” Organo said.
Organo said they have strengthened inter-agency cooperation through the inclusion of the different cafes in the town, which mushroomed through the years. – Ofelia C. Empian
December 8, 2023
