Be Your Own Boss
Brews that care
Coffee shop serves only locally grown varieties to help uplift the lives of coffee armers in the country
By Anne Ruth Panes-dela Cruz
Sometime in 2004, during an out-of-town coverage in Amadeo, Cavite, for her television show “Trip Ko ‘To,” Aida Gonzales came upon the idea of putting up a coffee shop that would serve locally grown coffee.
She recalls how it happened: “I was covering the town’s Pahimis Festival when the town mayor, Albert Ambagan Jr., broached to me the idea of putting up such a coffee shop. It would serve purely local coffee as a way of helping the coffee growers in Amadeo and elsewhere in the country. I was all for it but as a courtesy, I decided to wait for the mayor to make the first move.”
Until about 10 years ago, coffee exports had always been one of the country’s biggest dollar earners. Recent reports, however, indicated that the Philippines now makes only around $500,000 a year from coffee exports, and only 10 percent of the national harvest is exported.
While there has been an increasing demand for coffee, production has dropped because it has become less profitable for farmers to produce the commodity in the wake of unfavorable prices levels on the world market.
At the time, Gonzales was dabbling in TV-show production and she had lost a great deal of money producing her own TV show. Only when she won a big contract to produce an audio-video presentation for a government agency did she recover just a little from her faltering venture.
Even so, she decided that she could not afford to lose any more money in producing TV shows. Thus, no longer waiting for word from Mayor Ambagan, she decided to put up the coffee shop that he had suggested to her. She invested P1.5 million in it, using money she had earned from projects she handled during her stint as traffic reporter for the then ABS-CBN morning show “Magandang Umaga Bayan,” then augmenting it with loans from friends and acquaintances.
She named the coffee shop A La Eh Café Amadeo and located it on Sgt. Esguerra St. in Barangay South Triangle in Quezon City, with her team of six TV production personnel serving as her coffee-shop staff. Since then, A La Eh Café Amadeo has been serving and retailing the following coffee varieties: Café Amadeo from Cavite, Siete Baracos (“seven bulls”) from Batangas, Coffee Alamid (Philippine civet coffee), Cordillera coffee, and Monk’s Blend from Bukidnon.
Gonzales uses as tagline for Café Amadeo the slogan “Sa bawat higop, may nakukupkup (Nurture in every sip),” which is her way of reminding customers that by patronizing the coffee shop, they are contributing to the upliftment of local coffee farmers.
“It takes three years for a farm to yield coffee, so you can just imagine how difficult life can get for the coffee farmers,” she explains her concern for local coffee growers. “And what is good about coffee as a crop is that the farmers can also plant other crops along with it, thus providing themselves with another source of income.”
Aside from coffee, Café Amadeo also offers suman sa lihiya (a native rice cake) from Batangas; Filipino dishes such as tinola (chicken casserole), bistek (native beef steak), and adobo (a chicken dish); and baked goods that Gonzales bakes herself.
Today, Café Amadeo already has five outlets. The second outlet opened at the Quezon City Circle in Diliman in 2006, followed by the third at the Manila Domestic Airport in June 2007 and by a coffee kiosk at the Land Transportation Office along EDSA in Quezon City in September 2007. The fifth outlet opened last February at the Hobbies of Asia Building on Diosdado Macapagal Avenue in Pasay City.
Gonzales is confident of the continuing growth of her coffee shop business. “There will always be a market for coffee shops because they are an ideal meeting place for people,” she says. “Even students are now turning into coffee drinkers.”
For her long-term goal, she wants to have her own coffee farm and to be able to put up Café Amadeo outlets elsewhere in Luzon, in the Visayas and Mindanao, and in Filipino communities in the United States. She also plans to produce a definitive video documentary about coffee in the Philippines.
“It will be a dream come true if I am able to realize all of this,” she says.
Contact Details:
A LA EH CAFÉ AMADEO
4 Sergeant Esguerra Street Barangay South Triangle,
Quezon City
Telephone: (02) 927-5545
She recalls how it happened: “I was covering the town’s Pahimis Festival when the town mayor, Albert Ambagan Jr., broached to me the idea of putting up such a coffee shop. It would serve purely local coffee as a way of helping the coffee growers in Amadeo and elsewhere in the country. I was all for it but as a courtesy, I decided to wait for the mayor to make the first move.”
Until about 10 years ago, coffee exports had always been one of the country’s biggest dollar earners. Recent reports, however, indicated that the Philippines now makes only around $500,000 a year from coffee exports, and only 10 percent of the national harvest is exported.
While there has been an increasing demand for coffee, production has dropped because it has become less profitable for farmers to produce the commodity in the wake of unfavorable prices levels on the world market.
At the time, Gonzales was dabbling in TV-show production and she had lost a great deal of money producing her own TV show. Only when she won a big contract to produce an audio-video presentation for a government agency did she recover just a little from her faltering venture.
Even so, she decided that she could not afford to lose any more money in producing TV shows. Thus, no longer waiting for word from Mayor Ambagan, she decided to put up the coffee shop that he had suggested to her. She invested P1.5 million in it, using money she had earned from projects she handled during her stint as traffic reporter for the then ABS-CBN morning show “Magandang Umaga Bayan,” then augmenting it with loans from friends and acquaintances.
She named the coffee shop A La Eh Café Amadeo and located it on Sgt. Esguerra St. in Barangay South Triangle in Quezon City, with her team of six TV production personnel serving as her coffee-shop staff. Since then, A La Eh Café Amadeo has been serving and retailing the following coffee varieties: Café Amadeo from Cavite, Siete Baracos (“seven bulls”) from Batangas, Coffee Alamid (Philippine civet coffee), Cordillera coffee, and Monk’s Blend from Bukidnon.
Gonzales uses as tagline for Café Amadeo the slogan “Sa bawat higop, may nakukupkup (Nurture in every sip),” which is her way of reminding customers that by patronizing the coffee shop, they are contributing to the upliftment of local coffee farmers.
“It takes three years for a farm to yield coffee, so you can just imagine how difficult life can get for the coffee farmers,” she explains her concern for local coffee growers. “And what is good about coffee as a crop is that the farmers can also plant other crops along with it, thus providing themselves with another source of income.”
Aside from coffee, Café Amadeo also offers suman sa lihiya (a native rice cake) from Batangas; Filipino dishes such as tinola (chicken casserole), bistek (native beef steak), and adobo (a chicken dish); and baked goods that Gonzales bakes herself.
Today, Café Amadeo already has five outlets. The second outlet opened at the Quezon City Circle in Diliman in 2006, followed by the third at the Manila Domestic Airport in June 2007 and by a coffee kiosk at the Land Transportation Office along EDSA in Quezon City in September 2007. The fifth outlet opened last February at the Hobbies of Asia Building on Diosdado Macapagal Avenue in Pasay City.
Gonzales is confident of the continuing growth of her coffee shop business. “There will always be a market for coffee shops because they are an ideal meeting place for people,” she says. “Even students are now turning into coffee drinkers.”
For her long-term goal, she wants to have her own coffee farm and to be able to put up Café Amadeo outlets elsewhere in Luzon, in the Visayas and Mindanao, and in Filipino communities in the United States. She also plans to produce a definitive video documentary about coffee in the Philippines.
“It will be a dream come true if I am able to realize all of this,” she says.
Contact Details:
A LA EH CAFÉ AMADEO
4 Sergeant Esguerra Street Barangay South Triangle,
Quezon City
Telephone: (02) 927-5545
