Most coffee-producing countries grow one species, or two if they straddle the right altitudes. The Philippines commercially grows four, which makes it genuinely unusual, and one of those four is barely cultivated anywhere else on earth. That is a real point of distinction, and it sits oddly next to the fact that the country imports most of the coffee it drinks, covered in our article on the Philippine coffee industry.
This article covers what those four species are, what actually distinguishes them, and the harder question of where you can drink them in Marikina. On that last point the directory applies its usual rule: a shop is named only where the site's own vetted data or a public listing says it carries something, never because it seems likely.
Species is not the same as variety
Worth clearing up first, because the words get used interchangeably and the Philippine case makes the distinction matter. A species is a distinct plant: Coffea arabica, Coffea canephora, Coffea liberica, Coffea excelsa. A variety, sometimes called a cultivar, is a subtype within a species, the way Typica, Bourbon, Caturra and Catimor are all varieties of Arabica.
So Sagada and Benguet coffee are not varieties. They are places, and what grows there is Arabica of one variety or another. Kapeng barako, by contrast, genuinely is a different species. When people talk about Philippine coffee varieties they usually mean a mix of both categories, and the mix is worth untangling because the species differences are large while the origin differences are subtler.
Liberica, or kapeng barako
This is the one with the strongest claim to being ours. The Department of Agriculture's coffee roadmap[1] describes Liberica, also known as kapeng barako, as having a strong flavour and sharp aroma, and it is associated above all with Batangas and Cavite.
The beans are physically striking, noticeably larger than Arabica or Robusta, and the cup is assertive: heavy-bodied, low in the bright acidity specialty drinkers prize in Arabica, with a distinctive aroma often described as woody or aniseed-like. It is not a subtle coffee and it is not trying to be. It suits the way it is traditionally drunk in the Philippines, brewed strong and taken with sugar.
The uncomfortable part is scarcity. The roadmap records Liberica at 1.1% of national production in 2020, some 462.53 metric tons of dried cherries, grown on 1,303.45 hectares, with the crop mainly produced in Western Visayas and the ARMM region rather than in the Batangas heartland of its reputation. So the coffee most tied to Filipino identity is about one hundredth of what the country grows.
There is a structural reason it stays that way. The roadmap notes that Liberica and Excelsa are cross-pollinated, so trees grown from seed do not reliably resemble their parents, producing uneven plantations and inconsistent quality. And as of September 2021 there were 40 nurseries accredited by the Bureau of Plant Industry: 28 for Robusta, 11 for Arabica, and exactly one for Liberica. A single accredited nursery nationwide is a hard ceiling on how fast barako can expand.
Excelsa, the one almost nobody else grows
Excelsa is the genuine curiosity. The roadmap puts it at 5.7% of 2020 production, 3,712.31 metric tons of dried cherries across 7,429.6 hectares, mostly in the ARMM region and Davao. Globally it is a rounding error; the Philippines is one of a handful of places where it is grown commercially at all.
The roadmap describes Excelsa as having berries bigger than Arabica but smaller than Liberica, and as more drought and pest resistant than the other types. That resistance is why it interests agronomists: a species that tolerates heat and dry spells is worth attention given the climate pressures on Arabica described in our article on the Arabica genome.
In the cup it tends toward tart, fruity and dark-toned, and it is often blended rather than sold alone. If you see barako sold as a blend, Excelsa is frequently in it, since the two species are botanically close and grown in overlapping areas.
Robusta, the one you have definitely drunk
Robusta, Coffea canephora, is the workhorse and by far the largest crop: 76.5% of 2020 production, 41,808.65 metric tons of dried cherries across 86,376.14 hectares. If you have drunk a 3-in-1 sachet, and in the Philippines that is nearly everyone, you have drunk Philippine Robusta or its imported equivalent.
It carries roughly double the caffeine of Arabica, is more disease resistant, grows at lower elevations, and yields more per tree, which is exactly why it dominates. It is also harsher and more bitter, which is why specialty coffee has historically looked past it. That view has softened as fine Robusta has improved, but the bulk of the Philippine crop goes to instant manufacture rather than to cafes. Our Arabica versus Robusta guide covers what the difference actually tastes like.
Robusta also has a claim on Arabica's ancestry. Salojärvi and colleagues showed that Arabica is a natural hybrid of Coffea canephora and Coffea eugenioides[2], so every Arabica plant carries a full set of Robusta chromosomes.
Arabica, and the places that matter
Arabica was 16.7% of 2020 production, 14,657.46 metric tons of dried cherries on 18,155.7 hectares. The roadmap notes it is mostly cultivated above 1,000 metres and sells at a premium, and the 2020 farmgate figures bear that out: Arabica at around PhP 103.25 per kilogram against Robusta at PhP 72.92.
This is where the place names come in. Benguet, Sagada in Mountain Province, Kalinga and the wider Cordillera produce the country's best-known highland Arabica, with Mt. Apo in Davao and parts of Bukidnon also established. Elevation is doing most of the work: cooler temperatures slow cherry maturation, which develops more complex sugars and acids, a relationship covered in our guide to how altitude affects flavour.
If you want to taste what Philippine coffee can do at the specialty end, Cordillera Arabica is where to start, and our Sagada versus Benguet comparison goes into the differences.
Kape alamid, and why specialty buyers avoid it
Civet coffee, kape alamid or musang coffee, made from beans passed through the digestive tract of a civet, is genuinely a Philippine product and the roadmap lists several such brands among locally made ground coffees, including Coffee Alamid, Mt. Apo Civet coffee and Kalinga Musang coffee.
It is worth being straightforward about why much of the specialty world declines to sell it. Demand made caging civets commercially attractive, and the animal welfare concerns around caged production are well documented and are the reason many roasters and cafes will not stock it. Authenticity is a second problem: the price premium creates obvious incentives to mislabel, and a buyer generally has no way to verify what they are getting. Wild-collected, traceable civet coffee does exist and is a different proposition, but it is a small fraction of what is sold under the name.
What a cup of each actually tastes like
Species differences are large enough to be obvious even to a beginner, which is not true of most distinctions in coffee, and the framework for describing them is the sensory vocabulary covered in our article on the flavour wheel, built on the World Coffee Research Sensory Lexicon[3] of 110 defined attributes.
In broad terms, Arabica at altitude is where the bright, fruity and floral descriptors live: higher perceived acidity, more aromatic complexity, lighter body. Robusta sits in the nutty, woody, rubbery and grain-like regions, with heavier body, lower acidity and more bitterness, which is why it works in espresso blends for crema and punch and why it dominates instant coffee.
Liberica is the outlier and the reason it is worth seeking out. Heavy body, low acidity, and a distinctive aroma that people reach for words like woody, jackfruit-like or aniseed to describe. It does not taste like a more intense Arabica; it tastes like a different thing. Excelsa tends tart and dark-fruited and is more often blended than poured alone.
If you have only ever had barako with plenty of sugar, which is how it is traditionally served, it is worth trying it black once simply to find out what the sugar has been covering.
Where to drink Philippine coffee in Marikina
This is the part where a directory is most tempted to guess, so here is exactly what can be substantiated and nothing beyond it.
Beanhi Coffee House in Calumpang is the clearest case. It is recorded in this directory as a coffee house that also sells the beans it brews, showcasing single origins from growing regions around the Philippines, and 8List.ph's roundup of local bean sellers lists its available blends as Sagada in medium and dark roast, Espresso, Benguet, Barako and green coffee, sold in 250g, 500g and 1kg bags. That covers Cordillera Arabica and Liberica from one Marikina counter, which is as close to a survey of Philippine coffee as the city offers.
Inarawan Cafe in Concepcion Uno lists a Salty Cream Barako among its best sellers, which puts Liberica on a Marikina menu as a drink rather than as beans to take home. The shop began as a Sunday pop-up stall along Marilaque Road before opening in Concepcion Uno in December 2020.
Franken Coffee Bar + Roastery in San Roque roasts its own beans in-house, which makes it a good place to ask what is currently on the roaster. To be clear, this directory has no public source stating that Franken carries Philippine origins specifically, and the shop is named here for its roasting rather than for its sourcing.
Those are the only three that can be supported. It is very likely that other Marikina shops pour Philippine beans without saying so publicly, since sourcing is one of the things independent cafes are least consistent about publishing. If you run a Marikina shop carrying Philippine origins, or you have seen one, the directory is happy to be corrected, and menus change faster than any list of them.
Why so few, and how to find more
It is worth being honest about why this list is short, because the answer is not that Marikina cafes avoid Philippine coffee. It is that most independent cafes anywhere publish very little about sourcing. A shop's Facebook page shows drinks, promos and interiors; the origin of the beans is the sort of detail that gets mentioned in conversation and rarely written down.
So the most reliable method is the low-tech one: ask. Baristas at shops that care about their coffee are usually pleased to be asked, and a shop roasting its own beans, as Franken does, will know exactly what is in the hopper. If you want Philippine beans specifically, asking whether they have anything local is a more productive question than scanning a menu, since a Philippine single origin is often the guest coffee rather than the house blend.
The other reliable route is buying beans rather than drinks. A shop selling retail bags has to label them, which is why Beanhi is the one Marikina case with a clear public record of what it stocks.
The honest summary
The Philippines grows all four commercial coffee species, which very few countries do. Robusta is three quarters of it and mostly becomes instant coffee. Arabica is a sixth and is concentrated in the Cordillera highlands where the interesting specialty coffee comes from. Excelsa is a twentieth and is nearly unique to this part of the world. Liberica, the barako that carries the most cultural weight, is about one percent of the crop and constrained by a single accredited nursery nationwide.
In Marikina, one shop is publicly documented as selling Philippine single-origin beans across Sagada, Benguet and barako, and one has a barako drink on its best-seller list. That is a thin showing for a city of this size, and it is a fair reflection of a market where imported beans are cheaper and easier than local ones.
If that list grows, it will be because customers asked.
It is the one lever a drinker actually holds.
Sourcing tends to get published when customers make it worth publishing.