Growing coffee in Philippines
Where is coffee grown in the Philippines?
Mostly on Mindanao, which grows over 80% of Philippine coffee, led by SOCCSKSARGEN, Davao and BARMM, and mostly robusta. Arabica grows in the Cordillera of northern Luzon, and liberica, kapeng barako, in Batangas and Cavite. The Philippines grows about 30,000 tonnes of green coffee a year but drinks far more and imports most of it.
At a glance
2026- Production
- 475k bags
- 2026/27 forecast, 60 kg bags
- World rank
- No. 24
- 0.3% of world output
- Species
- Robusta 69%, arabica 24%, excelsa 6%, liberica under 1% in 2020 (PSA, via DA roadmap)
- Harvest
- October to March (Philippine Coffee Board)
- Production
- 30,320 t of green coffee in 2020 (PSA, via DA roadmap)
- Area under coffee
- 113,265 ha in 2020 (PSA, via DA roadmap)
- Growers
- 95% of farms under 5 ha
- Exports
- Small; the Philippines imports most of its coffee
- Main varieties
- Robusta, Arabica, Excelsa, Liberica (barako)
Production: USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, Coffee: World Markets and Trade (July 2026). Other figures describe 2026 and come from the sources at the end of this page. Updated once a year.
Growing regions
All origins- Batangas and Cavite (Barako)300–500 m in CALABARZON (Philippine Coffee Board); about 300 m (Slow Food)Kapeng barako from Batangas and Cavite, Philippines: liberica grown on 20-metre trees at about 300–500 m, strong and pungent with an aniseed fragrance.
- Benguet (Cordillera)About 1,600 m at Atok (Slow Food); arabica at 1,000–1,800 m across the Cordillera (PCAARRD)Coffee from Benguet, Philippines: Typica arabica grown since the 1870s under pine and alder at about 1,600 m in Atok, a Slow Food Ark of Taste heritage coffee.
- Bukidnon1,200–1,800 m for its arabica highlands (PIDS)Coffee from Bukidnon, Philippines: robusta in volume, prize-winning highland arabica at 1,200–1,800 m, and a roadmap to 10,000 hectares.
- Davao (Mount Apo)Mount Apo arabica about 1,200–1,600 m (roasters)Coffee from the Davao Region, Philippines: robusta, arabica and excelsa, with Catimor arabica grown on Mount Apo at about 1,200–1,600 m.
The Philippines is one of the few countries that grows all four commercial coffees: robusta, arabica, excelsa and liberica, the giant-beaned kapeng barako of Batangas. In the 1880s it was among the world’s biggest coffee exporters. Today it grows about 30,000 tonnes a year, mostly robusta on Mindanao, and imports most of what Filipinos drink. Here’s how much, where, when and where it comes from.
The short version
- About 30,000 tonnes of green coffee a year.
- Robusta is two-thirds to three-quarters of the crop; liberica about 1%.
- SOCCSKSARGEN, in southern Mindanao, grows over 40%.
- Mindanao grows over 80% of it.
- Kapeng barako, liberica from Batangas and Cavite.
- Harvest from October to March.
- Imports cover about four-fifths of demand.
How much coffee does the Philippines grow?
About 30,000 tonnes, though the figures vary:
| Measure | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Production, 2008–2012 average | 25,000 t | Philippine Coffee Board |
| Production, 2015 | 36,171 t of green coffee | PSA, via DA roadmap |
| Production, 2020 | 30,320 t of green coffee | PSA, via DA roadmap |
| Production, annual | About 30,000 t of green coffee | Brazilian agricultural attaché, 2025 |
| Production, January–May 2025 | 13,057.64 t (+10.7%) | PSA, via Daily Tribune |
| Production, 2025/26 | 450,000 bags (about 27,000 t, by our calculation) | USDA |
| Consumption, 2018 | 170,000 t, up from 75,000 t in 2002 | Brazilian agricultural attaché |
| Consumption, 2025/26 | 6.5 million bags | USDA |
Production has been falling at about 3.5% a year over the past decade, the Brazilian report says, while consumption has grown. Yields fell from 0.64 to 0.54 tonnes of dried cherries a hectare between 2015 and 2020, as growers switched crops and trees aged, the Department of Agriculture says. Its Philippine Coffee Industry Roadmap 2021–2025 aimed to reverse that.
Where is coffee grown in the Philippines?
On all three island groups, but mostly on Mindanao, which grew 83.63% of Philippine coffee in 2020. The leading regions that year:
| Region | Green coffee, 2020 | Area harvested | Share of output |
|---|---|---|---|
| SOCCSKSARGEN (South Cotabato, Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, Sarangani) | 10,794 t | 27,010 ha | 35.6% |
| Davao (Mount Apo) | 5,413 t | 15,881 ha | 17.85% |
| ARMM (now BARMM) | 5,282 t | 13,976 ha | 17.42% |
| Northern Mindanao (with Bukidnon) | 2,799 t | 11,639 ha | 9.23% |
| Western Visayas | 2,090 t | 9,914 ha | 6.89% |
| Cordillera | 1,003 t | 5,160 ha | 3.3% |
| CALABARZON (with Batangas and Cavite) | 636 t | 13,196 ha | 2.1% |
Source: PSA, via the Department of Agriculture’s coffee roadmap.
By 2023 SOCCSKSARGEN’s lead had grown, to 10,987 tonnes, 42.45% of the crop, ahead of Davao (20.25%), BARMM (18.74%) and Northern Mindanao (12.25%), according to the Bukidnon Coffee Roadmap, cited by PIDS, the government’s development think tank. Most of it comes from Sultan Kudarat province, the country’s leading robusta supplier, PIDS says. The 2025 Brazilian attaché report gives the 2020 regional shares as current; we use the dated figures.
In the north, the Cordillera of Luzon, Benguet, Mountain Province, Kalinga, Ifugao and Abra, suits arabica; CALABARZON, south of Manila, grows robusta, excelsa and liberica, with Batangas and Cavite the home of barako, the Philippine Coffee Board says. CALABARZON has much more coffee land than output: its 13,196 hectares yielded only 0.10 tonnes of dried cherries a hectare in 2020, the lowest of any region with more than 5,000 hectares.
The coffee
Robusta is most of the crop, mostly for instant coffee, followed by arabica, grown high for premium coffee, excelsa, valued for drought and pest resistance, and liberica. The shares depend on the source:
| Species | PSA, 2020 (our calculation) | DA roadmap text | Brazilian attaché, 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Robusta | 68.9% | 66% | 76.5% |
| Arabica | 24.2% | 25% | 16.7% |
| Excelsa | 6.1% | 8% | 5.7% |
| Liberica | 0.8% | 1% | 1.1% |
The largest arabica crop is not in the north but in SOCCSKSARGEN, which grew 61% of the country’s arabica in 2020, by our calculation from PSA figures. The best-known arabicas come from Bukidnon, which regularly wins the national quality competition, and Benguet, the Cordillera’s heritage Typica. Kapeng barako, as liberica is called, gives “a distinctively robust and powerful cup”, the Philippine Coffee Board says; its trees grow up to 20 metres tall and are picked with ladders, and its beans are among the largest of any coffee. Low yields and hard harvesting have made it rare, and it is listed in Slow Food’s Ark of Taste.
When is coffee harvested in the Philippines?
From October to March, the Philippine Coffee Board says.
Who grows Philippine coffee?
Smallholders: 95% of farms are under 5 hectares, the Brazilian report says. Most coffee goes to instant coffee, a market in which Nestlé holds about 80% of sales.
Where does Philippine coffee come from?
Mostly abroad. In 2020 the Philippines was only about 15% self-sufficient in coffee, and imports met about 81% of demand. In 2023 its main suppliers were Vietnam (39,400 tonnes), Indonesia (7,100 t), Malaysia (1,500 t), Brazil and Switzerland. USDA expects imports of about 6.1 million bags in 2025/26, most of them soluble coffee. Filipinos drank about 3.05 kg a person in 2020, and the country had about 13,616 coffee shops, up 10% on 2023.
A short history
- 1740s: Spanish friars bring coffee to the Philippines, by the usual account, and it is planted in Lipa, Batangas.
- 1828: a Spanish society offers a prize for a 6,000-tree coffee plantation; Paul de La Gironière wins it at Jala-Jala.
- Mid-1850s: Batangas exports coffee to America and Australia.
- 1876: the first liberica is planted at Amadeo, Cavite.
- 1877: Lipa’s harvest peaks at 70,000 picos.
- 1880s: the Philippines is reputed to be the world’s fourth-largest coffee exporter.
- 1889–1891: insects, then coffee rust, ruin the plantations; within two years output falls to a sixth, the Philippine Coffee Board says. A Batangas historian dates the worst, province-wide blight to 1899.
- 1950s–1960s: new rust-resistant coffee and the rise of instant coffee bring a revival.
- 1980: the Philippines joins the International Coffee Organization.
- 2002: the Philippine Coffee Board is founded.
Philippine coffee and other origins
- Batangas and Cavite (Barako): the Philippines’ own liberica.
- Coffee in Vietnam: the Philippines’ biggest supplier.
- Coffee in Malaysia: the other home of liberica.
- The atlas: the Philippines’ growing areas on the map.