DUMAGUETE COFFEE CLUB

What goes in a cup of coffee? To most, perhaps, this would be a silly question as the answer is quite obvious. How does one really appreciate a cup of coffee? One raised eyebrow and a grunt or a stifled laugh might be generated. Coffee, after all, for many is just a dark and bitter drink. To most, it is something that has to come with milk and mounds of sugar.

Dumaguete Kape Club - Dumaguete's serious coffee drinkers

To a select few however, it might not be the same. From these people, you’ll find a myriad of interesting thoughts and ideas; sometimes you would not even think it were possible. In Dumaguete, there are a handful of these people. Informally, they have straightforwardly taken the name “Kape Club”: Coffee enthusiasts who gather together for their sessions of sharing this wonderful caffeinated drug. Their aim is to “coffee-vangelize” people (not necessarily only from Dumaguete). Coffee-vangelism involves education about coffee, making it not just a drink. In the Dumaguete Kape Club, one learns to appreciate fine coffee, stripped to its rawest form –no sugar, no milk, no cream. One also learns how coffee is different depending on its origins or even age or the quality of the beans.

Single origin Arabicas that are freshly roasted

There is also appreciating the scent and aroma of coffee and then incorporating these into the whole experience. To add to that, coffee also becomes a ride to many destinations around the world. In the Dumaguete Kape Club, coffee is taken to a whole new level. Coffee becomes passionately enveloped in a seeming treasure trove of sense-invoking wonders. In the meetings, one learns that before your cup, which is now in front of you, came to be, there was a long and arduous process involved to tender such wonderful experience.

Photographer Greg Morales "sniffs" the aroma!

How do all these then unfold? For starters, all coffee in the Dumaguete Kape Club start out as green beans. No coffee served in the club is more than a week old. Yes, unlike wine, as coffee ages it loses quality. As much as possible, the pioneers of the club try to bring in coffee from a variety of origins. This is also to make the participants experience and see for themselves how coffee can become different experiences depending on where it came from. When they meet, the participants take their own notes on the coffee that they are currently having. Needless to say, one does not need to come armed with a vocabulary made up of exquisite descriptives as it also is a place and time for self expression. Whoever said learning can’t be fun?

Serious coffee notes

Most of the meetings are held at a local coffee shop situated in the heart of Dumaguete City, just near the boulevard (Café Antonio Dumaguete). The minority still fill up seats as regulars, but of course anybody is welcome to share the ultimate coffee experience.

Cool Cafe Antonio cup - wonderful place too!

Albeit it being in its birth period, coffee culture is beginning to flourish even in a relatively small city like Dumaguete. We might say, we are now waking up to the aroma of freshly roasted coffee that should perk up the nerves of what others believe as a sleepy town!