Origin Trip #55: Davao, Philippines, 2026

We landed in Davao on a Tuesday afternoon in the middle of a downpour, which is how most of our trips to Mindanao begin. By Wednesday morning the sun was out, the road up to the fermentary had dried into something a truck could manage, and thirty farmers were waiting for us under the drying shed with the first boxes of the season already four days in.

The reason we come is simple: we do not want to negotiate a price by email. We sit at the table with the group's officers, we open the books, we show them what the world market did this year and what our bars sold for, and we agree on a number together. This year that number is again well above both the farmgate and the world market price.

The fermentation work the group has done over the last three seasons is showing. We cut-tested beans from four boxes and found consistent full brown interiors with almost no slate. That is the difference between a bar that tastes of dark fruit and a bar that tastes of nothing in particular.

We also paid this year's profit share. It was counted out on the same table, in cash, in front of everyone, and a portion was set aside by vote for the nursery that is raising grafted seedlings for the farms that lost trees to last year's storms.

The new harvest lands in Springfield in about ten weeks. If you have had the 77% Davao bar before, this year's is a shade fruitier. We think you will notice.