MERURI COFFEE TAMPIPI

Introducing the MERURI TAMPIPI. One tampipi (pandan leaf box) containing the following Christmas goodies:
~ 1kg Linuklokot
~ 500g Comising Legacy Coffee
~ 500g Robust Pride Batangas Coffee
~ 5 rolls Sweet Surprise Table Chocolate

Pay only P1,250.
Get yours here and shout “MINE!” in order for us to know where we are.

About the LINUKLOKOT:
We all know that the country’s best coffee comes from the Cordilleras, but sugar too? Until last year we did even not know that sugar cane is able to grow this high up in the mountains. The product is called “Linuklokot” and it is delicious! It has made all the difference in the jams we are making and the coffee we are drinking. The harvest is very small and grown only once a year in order for what little arable land there is to be devoted to more staple food like rice and kamote. The Linuklokot is consumed almost entirely locally with only a very small surplus. How beautiful the story of Linuklokot is. When a farmer’s harvest comes due, the community comes out to help in a manual, labor-intensive process. Crushing, shredding, clarifying, filtering, boiling, crystallising, centrifuging, drying, and finally packaging, everyone gives a share of himself and takes a little for himself. The same farmer helps his neighbour in turn, and so on. It’s true Bayanihan. Let these pictures speak how Linuklokot is made and how it binds and more importantly, how it binds the community together.

About the COMISING LEGACY COFFEE:
REVIVING THE LEGACY OF COMISING. History records show that coffee was first introduced to Benguet by the Spanish military governor Manuel Scheidnegal y Sera. He distributed coffee seeds to the different Igorot tribes and his successor issued an edict forcing them to establish coffee plantations in their ancestral domains. The proud tribal leaders opposed this—killing the coffee plants by uprooting the stalks and pouring boiling water on the root system—with the exception of one, Comising of the Ibalois in what is now the town of Kabayan. Comising was not only an exceptionally brave leader—the many scars on his body a testament to many hard-fought battles against busoles (head-hunters) of the north—but he was also exceptionally wealthy. He owned many herds of cattle, packs of horses, and large sementeras of rice. After many visits to the capital of Manila, a very difficult trip for a mountain Igorot to make, he recognized how the new produce that was being forced upon his people would be valuable to their economic survival. If you would plant this coffee on the land, he promised his people, he would buy it all and deal with the Spaniards himself. And so this is how it came to pass that Kabayan, by 1902, became the major source of coffee exported to mainland Spain through the Tabacalera Company. Fast forward to the modern day, Kabayan has fallen far on the wayside in coffee production, overtaken by Atok, Itogon, La Trinidad, Kibungan and Tublay. We shall not speculate how this happened but suffice to say that one of Rural Rising’s goals in 2021 is to bring back Kabayan-grown coffee to its former glory. Organically-grown, single origin. Exclusive.

About the BARAKO COFFEE:
ROBUST PRIDE. So what we have here are eleven kilos of BARAKO COFFEE. Tehre was a dozen originally but we have to keep one of personal enjoyment. These are the beans while they were still on the trees on our visit to Nasugbu, Batanags last month and this is the farmer, his name is Many Vida. The beans have since been harvested and are now the best example of that strong and famous Robusta coffee. The only thing stronger than this coffee is Manny’s love for his children and their continued education. He graciously invited us to his house and the very first thing we saw upon entering were the rows of medals hanging from the ceiling. They are this family’s trophies of utmost pride. I think the proceeds from this will go towards a new computer for his son, let us see what else we can give them.

About the JUANITO’S SWEET SURPRISE TABLEA:
SWEET SURPRISE IN SAN JACINTO. A weekend visit to my siblings in San Jacinto, Pangasinan brought me a sweet surprise. The gladness from seeing family was added to by the gladness of meeting this stranger—a man who lives just four kilometers away, in his backyard are 200 cocoa trees. The thing we liked about this tablea is the story of the affable, old man who is growing it. His name is Juanito Cayabyab. Twenty-five years ago, Mang Juanito lost his job after Marcopper Mines in Marinduque closed down from worst environmental disaster in Philippine history—a fractured drainage tunnel flooding villages and poisoning the Boac River forever with 1.6 million cubic meters of toxic mine tailing. He returned to San Jacinto and eked a living from driving a tricycle. One day, while ferrying a passenger to a distant barangay, he chanced upon a fruiting cocoa tree by the side of the road. Seeking out the owner, he was able to buy five pods, paying the fantastic sum of five pesos each. Fast forward to the present day, Mang Juanito has parlayed those pods into tree. Two hundred fully mature and fruiting trees to be exact, and each one is providing an income that is able to support him in his old age. What a success story, one that is literally about finding the “seeds of opportunity”. How inspired I am to write this. If there is something to be learned from the story is this: No success comes in a snap. Except success in Snap Buys because we are going to do one now for Mang Juanito’s tableas

SNAP BUY MERURI TAMPIPI. For a limited time only, we are going to put together four of our very best — 2 coffee, 1 special sugar and 1 special chocolate — pay only P1,250. Have yourselves a happy holidays with this perfect combination.