the kalinga blend

a very close friend called me up and eagerly informed me that his coming to davao and with him is the famous "Kalinga Blend". there are two things rushing into my mind. first, i didnt know that there is indeed a kalinga blend. second, i never know that it is famous. being a coffee lover, i was indeed little excited to have a cup of that "famous" coffee. the bearer have the reason to be proud. my friend and bok, atty jel bongat is the provincial administator of Kalinga Apayao. i met him few years ago in cagayan de oro city when he applied for an honorary membership of our class, PNPA Class of 1992. he was then with the Bureau of Customs as legal officer based in mnila internation container port.

the packaging is bit impressive. the coffee is already grounded and is inside an aluminum foil. but my instinct says, this coffee is definitely not good. another thing strikes me is the instructions at the back. it says, boil a cup of water and pour the contents. again, definitely, the people producing this coffee do not really know their coffee knowledges. and now the taste, to give justice to this coffee, i used my french press. i didnt boil it as it was in the instructions. it confirmed my gut feelings, it sucks. it is a mile away from our own catimor coffee. of course, there are factors to be considered such as time of roasting, the quality of beans during harvest and etc..... in addition, for person who have tasted on the world's best coffee such as the red sea, yemen, brazil, my taste buds are conditioned only for the best tasting coffee.

my verdict, this coffee is not worth drinking. your very convenient 3-in-1 instant coffee is better. saying to a friend that his coffee really sucks is the hardest word to say. but you have to. for the benefit of the doubt, ill send some this to the main man in coffee, bobby timonera, if ths coffee worth a second look.

just like me, i let my kids have their cup of coffee at younger age. maybe it just run in the family that kids are suppose to have their cup of coffee every morning just like adults do. mornings are never perfect without our coffee. its more than just a cup of coffee but it is life in itself. as in the old days, coffee will make or break the day.

my shelu is not different from me. she loves coffee as much as i do, with a little difference however. she like hers with creamer and sugar while i do with no frills. whenever i got freshly roasted beans, she loves to sniff it like dog. i could feel she may be under the spell of coffee. and that made the difference between her siblings. my other kids, the 3 boys, are contented with their 3-in-1 instant coffee from the big "N". for the boys, it doesnt matter from where it is as long as it is coffee. this is the bond that ties me and shelu, our love for home made coffee.

in the pic, shelu holds in her hands freshly roasted catimor beans. like most people do, we contend ourselves with the sweet coffee aroma before grinding it. for me, the aroma from coffee is one thing i can never get enough. it seems heaven to me and i know coffee addicts like me will say in unison, "amen".

Coffee, Coffee, Coffee

Walking along almost any city street, in an airport or through a shopping mall carries you past at least one specialty coffee shop or cafe, but coffee is a fairly recent addition to our daily fare. Its origins can be traced to dwellers in Ethiopia's Red Sea hills, where chewing the bright red fruits of the coffee bush allowed them to stay alert while hunting. Adopted by Sufis in Yemen as an aid to religious practices about 600 years ago, coffee soon spread to the rest of the Muslim world.

Finds of coffee cups, pots, and even coffee beans on the mid-18th century Sadana Island shipwreck excavated by INA-Egypt since 1995 let us look a little closer at this addictive luxury's role in the economic and social life of the Middle East.

For centuries, Alexandria's warehouses stocked European and Mediterranean cabinets with spices and luxuries from the east. Unhappy with paying premium prices and able to successfully reach eastern seas, Europeans began trading directly for cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and mace in the late 1500s. Dutch take-over of spice-producing islands around 1600 forever changed world trade.

Egypt lost its monopoly on the "fine spices" and turned to coffee, dominating the trade throughout the 17th century. Coffee still made up about two-thirds of the value of imports from the Red Sea in the 18th century. Most coffee that passed through Egypt's Red Sea ports was sold in Cairo, about half of it for re-export to the Ottoman Empire. Egypt supplied the rest of the Ottoman world with the stimulating, and, some said, sinful drink.

Ottoman sultans periodically ordered all coffee houses shut and trade in coffee halted to prevent the rise of places filled with people doing nothing but sitting about drinking this dark, hot beverage and talking, often about politics and government.

Egyptian wheat, iron, glass and other food stuffs reached southern Red Sea ports in exchange for coffee, but most western Indian Ocean goods had to be paid for with silver coins.

This was not new practice--the periplus of the Erythrean Sea, a sailor's pilot of two thousand years ago, recommended merchants pack plenty of silver and gold bullion if they wished to acquire aromatic resins, spices, medicines, textiles, and fine wares of all types in the Arabian peninsula and western India.

Indian ships carried these expensive wares west on monsoon winds as far as Jidda, the port of Mecca and one of the world's busiest ports. But both Indians and Europeans, particularly the Dutch and Portuguese, were forbidden the northern Red Sea.

One of the curious features of the Sadana Island shipwreck is that no weapons have been found. A ship this size could ordinarily be expected to be armed with large cannon--piracy and capture were common in the western Indian Ocean. That the Sadana ship has no guns suggests that it sailed only within a "safe" area, in this case, the northern half of the Red Sea. This fits well with what we know of trade at Jidda where local rulers monopolized commerce to Suez in return for providing Ottoman officials with half the customs fees.

But the curious construction of the Sadana ship--which we can only describe as not European, not Arab, or not Mediterranean-- suggests that this policy may have changed by the mid-18th century. Archaeologists will work hard during the next excavation season at Sadana collecting wood samples and thousands of detailed measurements to help us pin down the ship's origin.

Studying remnants of the Sadana Island ship's coffee cargo helps us fit the ship's last voyage into the vast trade network encompassing Cairo and the rest of the Ottoman world. The interlocking pattern of exchange in this beloved beverage persists today, though the players are different.



By Cheryl Ward, Ph.D.
Originally published in El Bahri 3.2, 1997

How coffee can help hyperactive children

A clinical psychologist recently described a problem case he had encountered. A routine hyperactive child patient presented a difficulty when the parents positively refused him permission to use the standard medication prescribed in these cases. The child was so restless that he was unable to develop any relationship during the office visit. In desperation he gave the child a glass of cola beverage, and was surprised to find that the youngster calmed down almost immediately.

Later, thinking over the event, he concluded that it must have been the caffeine content of the soft drink that had a calming effect. Recognizing that a cup of coffee contained twice as much caffeine as the cola soda, he experimented by giving the child a cup of brew on the next visit. He was pleased to note it was even more effective. Thereafter, he used coffee exclusively whenever the parents forbade the use of medication in the treatment of their offspring.

Hyperactivity in youths--also called hyperkinesis, minimal or minor cerebral dysfunction, and attention deficit disorder is a serious problem in somewhat less than five percent of all children. Symptoms include short attention span, emotional instability, impulsivity and excessive motion or activity.
These are obviously objective signs, as they are difficult to measure accurately. They occur to a greater or lesser extent in all children. Accordingly the term "hyperactive" has been misused, because its ordinary meaning and medical definition are often confused. A sedentary parent or teacher might describe any normally active child as hyperkinetic.

Medically, this syndrome involves not only a great deal of random activity, inattention, fidgeting, interruptions, but characteristics of high intensity, difficulty in adapting to new situations and most importantly, inability to concentrate on a single subject or activity for a normal period of time.

Diagnosis is not always easy, even for a physician or psychologist. Yet a surprising number of lay people make it with ease. In one reported study, nearly half of a group of young boys were so labeled by their supervisors. On more scientific testing the actual incidence proved to be a small fraction of this amount.

Several years ago, in some special schools, it was found that entire c
lasses were being given medication based upon the teacher's diagnosis of hyperactivity. The resultant sensational news media reports of children being "doped" to calm them down, caused many parents to forbid legitimate practioners from using any medication on their children. This often occurred in true cases of hyperkinesis, where treatment was either extremely difficult or impossible without it.

The standard medication for a number of years for hyperactive children is an F.D.A. approved agent named Ritalin. In verified cases, this is a necessary prelude to psychological, educational and social treatment. Ritalin is basically a stimulant: if given to an adult or normal child, it demonstrates stimulating effects similar to amphetamines. These have at least five times the potency of caffeine as an invigorant.

For reasons that are not clearly understood, in a genuinely hyperactive child, there is a paradoxical effect. The youngster is calmed down upon the administration of Ritalin and develops an ability to concentrate better, and on the whole to function more effectively. Ritalin has a stabilizing effect, and appears to stimulate centers that counterbalance the cerebral areas that cause his deviant behavior.
Properly used in such a situation, it carries no risk of habituation or dependence. It is usually discontinued after a time with no ill effects, once the child has learned to adjust to its hyperkinesis.

Most common side effects of Ritalin are nervousness and insomnia. These are usually controlled by reducing the dosage. Other reactions include hypersensitivity, skin rash, fever dermatitas, loss of appetite, nausea, dizziness, headaches or weight loss. These latter symptoms are fairly uncommon when proper dosage has been established. It is recommended that administration be interrupted occasionaly to determine if there is recurrence of the behavioral symptoms sufficient to require continuation of the medication. Often the improvement is sustained when it is either temporarily or permanently discontinued.

Apparently, caffeine perhaps to a somewhat lesser extent, performs similarly to Ritalin in cases like these. Of course, there are many degrees of hyperactivity even in authenticated cases; and this particular one may have been one of the milder instances. Nevertheless, it would probably behoove pediatricians and practicing psychologists to utilize gentler medications like a cup of coffee for ailing children in this category before resorting to more drastic agents.

By Lee, Samuel
Publication: Tea & Coffee Trade Journal
Date: Tuesday, August 1 1989

Benefits Of Coffee Detailed In Health Studies

Health benefits of coffee keep pouring in. A new cancer study links higher coffee consumption to lower percentage of women who develop breast cancer. Recent studies have shown that those who drink more than three cups of coffee daily are less likely to develop high blood pressure, suggest that coffee drinkers are less likely to develop liver cancer, showed that coffee is the number one source of healthy antioxidants in the American diet, and that coffee reduces development of type 2 diabetes. Other coffee studies suggest that coffee contributes to better short-term memory and that coffee may increase sex drive in women.

The latest coffee study was conducted by Steven Narod of the University of Toronto. The study, published in the International Journal of Cancer in January, studied women with a very specific gene mutation known as BRCA1. Those women have an 80 percent risk of developing breast cancer before their 70th birthday. But according to Narod, those involved in his study, "... who drank six or more cups of coffee a day on average had about a 75 percent reduction in the risk of developing breast cancer."

A recent study of sexual behavior in rats suggests that coffee serves as the equivalent of female Viagra. That study was tentative at best, and looked only at rats which were not habitual coffee drinkers. So women who consume coffee rarely may find coffee to be a sexual stimulant.

But other health studies link coffee consumption to solid evidence that high levels of antioxidants in coffee carry health benefits and may reduce the risk of several cancers. A separate cancer study shows coffee drinkers are less likely to develop cancer of the liver as consumption levels increase.

A paper presented last year at the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) in Chicago linked coffee drinking with better short-term memory. Florian Koppelstatter, M.D., Ph.D., said, "We were able to show that caffeine modulates a higher brain function through its effects on distinct areas of the brain." Koppelstatter is a radiology fellow at the Medical University-Innsbruck in Austria.

source:http://www.cancercompass.com/cancer-news/1,10272,00.htm

Visit to the Coffee Farm

I was not sure if I heard it right when Bobby Timonera, a known photo journalist, told me that he was interested to visit our coffee farm in Bansalan. Our coffee farm is located in Sitio Ararat, in the foothills of Mt. Apo. I happened to know him months before I surfed into his site, kapetabay.com. A certain Benson from Cebu left a comment on his blog saying that coffee from Bansalan tasted like camote. I found the observation odd because I have known coffee from Bansalan as one the best in the region. I immediately put my comment right there and then that their impression on our beloved coffee is wrong. I suggested that I will send samples of my beans, the catimor variety and the civet coffee for cupping. Bobby, being a coffee lover, was glad to know accept my offer for him to taste my coffee and give his honest opinion. The following day, I sent my coffee to Iligan City where Bobby is residing.

I met Bobby and his close friend, Roger Marcelo, that night here in Davao City. It was great for he also gave me the chance to participate in cupping with Bob Martin, the owner of Mindanao.com. Cupping is all about tasting different kinds of coffee. That night, we had 6 kinds of coffee.

Back to our plan to visit the farm, we left Davao City bound for Bansalan on board on Bobby’s cute but very dependable car, a Nissan March. We left ulas at about 5 am and by before 7am, we are already at the Bansalan Fire Station where we will meet with bebing, my sister in law. She will go with us going up to the coffee farm. The trip to the farm is about 30 minutes on board a habal-habal, a motorcycle used to convey passengers in remote areas.

We left the fire station at 7:30am and the road is really slippery. It rained cats and dogs the night before and the motorcycle tires had to be fixed with chains for us to get through. The road is really muddy and slippery. We arrived at sitio Ararat before 9:00am and the cool, refreshing mountain breeze greets us which seems to rejuvenate our spirits. It is really cold up there. The reading on Roger’s altitude meter is 1350 meters above sea level, on which bobby said, a great factor for coffee production. According to Bobby, best coffees are in same altitude. He also said that same with Yemen and Ethiopia, where the best coffees are, we are along the equator belt, in between the tropics of cancer and Capricorn.

Aside from their love of coffee, these two guys are really good in photography, they simply took pictures on almost everything and the results are amazing! Their cameras capture what the environment has to offer and they got the best. They took a lot of pictures of mt. Apo, carrots, cabbages, people, horses, etc.. As I said, everything that they saw, they took pictures of it. It is really nice to hear when somebody in the coffee world will tell you that the farm is nice and the place is really good. Both bobby and roger told me that the place is really beautiful.

We left the farm after feasting on whole native chicken tinola at around 11:00 am. We took the same habal-habal going back to town. The trip going down lasts for less than 30 minutes. Due to slight rain, we have to walk for several meters due slippery road condition. We had just a rest for about 30 minutes in Bansalan Fire station and we hit the road back again to Davao city.

The visit to the farm is a wonderful experience. Having two wonderful guys made it even better. Roger made his last shot at chowking in toril. He had a close up photo of that delicious –looking, very colourful halo-halo. Just the same, the result is simply amazing.....

our own (bansalan) kopi luwak

kopi luwak, (pronounced [ˈkopi ˈluwak]) or Civet coffee is coffee made from coffee berries which have been eaten by and passed through the digestive tract of the Asian Palm Civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus). The civets eat the berries, but the beans inside pass through their system undigested. This process takes place on the islands of Sumatra, Java and Sulawesi in the Indonesian Archipelago, in the Philippines (where the product is called Kape Alamid) and in East Timor (locally called kafé-laku). Vietnam has a similar type of coffee, called weasel coffee, which is made from coffee berries which have been regurgitated by local weasels. In actuality the "weasel" is just the local version of the Asian Palm Civet.

Kopi is the Indonesian word for coffee, and luwak is a local name of the Asian Palm Civet. The raw, red coffee berries are part of its normal diet, along with insects, small mammals, small reptiles, eggs and nestlings of birds, and other fruit. The inner bean of the berry is not digested, but it has been proposed that enzymes in the stomach of the civet add to the coffee's flavor by breaking down the proteins that give coffee its bitter taste. The beans are defecated still covered in some inner layers of the berry. The beans are washed, and given only a light roast so as to not destroy the complex flavors that develop through the process. Some sources claim that the beans may be regurgitated instead of defecated.

In early days, the beans would be collected in the wild from a 'latrine', or a specific place where the civet would defecate as a means to mark its territory, and these latrines would be a predictable place for local gatherers to find the beans. More commonly today, captured civets are fed raw berries, the feces produced are then processed and the coffee beans offered for sale.

The resulting coffee is said to be like no other. It has a rich, heavy flavour with hints of caramel or chocolate. Other terms used to describe it are earthy, musty and exotic. The body is almost syrupy and it's very smooth.

One must wonder about the circumstances that brought about the first cup of Kopi Luwak coffee. Who would think to (or even want to) collect and roast beans out of animal feces? Perhaps a native figured it was easier to collect the beans from the ground this way, rather than having to work harder and pick them from the trees? We'll likely never know. But because of the strange method of collecting, there isn't much Kopi Luwak produced in the world. The average total annual production is only around 500 pounds of beans.

Because of the rarity of this coffee, the price is quite outrageous. If you can find a vendor, the current cost for a pound of Kopi Luwak is around $300 or more. Some more adventurous coffee houses are selling it by the cup, but you won't likely find it at your local coffee shop just yet. The coffee isn't so spectacular that it's truly worth that amount of money. You are paying for the experience of enjoying such an unusual and rare delicacy.

Kopi Luwak is the most expensive coffee in the world, selling for between $120 and $600 USD per pound, and is sold mainly in Japan and the United States. It is increasingly becoming available elsewhere, though supplies are limited: only 1,000 pounds (450 kg) at most make it into the world market each year (Pg 23, The Gospel According to Starbucks; Sweet). One small cafe, the Heritage Tea Rooms, in the hills outside Townsville in Queensland, Australia has Kopi Luwak coffee on the menu at A$50.00 (=US$48.00) per cup, selling approximately four cups a week, which has gained nationwide Australian press.[1]. In April 2008, the brasserie of Peter Jones department store in London's Sloane Square starting selling a blend of Kopi Luwak and Blue Mountain called Caffe Raro for £50 (=US$99.00) a cup.

A hypothesis to justify this coffee's reputation proposes that the beans are of superior quality before they are even before ingested. At any given point during a harvest, some coffee berries are not quite- or over-ripe, while others are just right. The palm civet evolved as an omnivore that naturally eats fruit and passes undigested material as a natural link to disperse seeds in a forest ecosystem. Where coffee plants have been introduced into their habitat, civets only forage on the most ripe berries, digest the fleshy outer layer, and later excrete the seeds eventually used for human consumption. Thus, when the fruit is at its peak, the seeds (or beans) within are equally so, with the expectation that this will come through in the taste of a freshly-brewed cup. As this may be true for the beans derived from wild-collected civet feces, farm raised civets are likely fed beans of varying quality and ripeness, so one would expect the taste of farm-raised beans to be less.

Our farm is located in Bansalan, Davao del Sur near Mt. Apo National Park,. because we have our own coffee farm and civets, we can guarantee that our product is 100% pure kopi luwak. for those who are interested to do business with us, i suggest you should visit our farm and see for yourselves we produced our own kopi luwak. what makes our civet coffee different is the variety of our coffee itself. while others have the arabica or robusta.variety, our farm is planted with the catimur coffee variety which is of higher quality than arabica and robusta. catimur is better. the color of its fruits or berries itself is yummy to the eyes. it close to fuschia pink than red.

For the locals here in bansalan, this coffee is known as kape sa Milo'. Milo' is the native word for civets. for interested persons, you may contact me through my mobile, 0920-7667551 or through my email, snowbound102388@yahoo.com