What's New with Sitio Belis in the Philippines?

From the very beginning, Kalsada’s mission has been to support Filipino coffee farmers by providing them with resources to bring specialty coffee to the global market. Building trust and partnership with the local community has been at the heart of their operations from day one. When they began working with farmers in Atok, Benguet, more than 11 years ago, their first coffee releases were small batches produced by individual farmers. Starting with only 15 smallholder farmers, production was low, with farmers producing as little as 35kg of high-quality coffee. 

Asthrine Pias, farmer and Sitio Belis manager, is harvesting chayote vegetables in her farm.

There were many reasons for this. Farmers primarily grew vegetables because they secured cash flow, and unlike coffee, which has only one harvest season, vegetables could be grown year-round and harvested multiple times. Farmers also processed their coffee by hand, using unstandardized practices that were passed down from relatives and community elders. Their financial resources to build better drying facilities were sparse, and farmers often settled for producing and selling mediocre coffees to local buyers. It was a secondary crop.

Kalsada soon realized that no matter how much training and education they could provide farmers, it wouldn’t be enough to make coffee a more viable crop. After many conversations with locals, it became clear that if farmers could focus on producing higher-quality cherries and Kalsada could focus on processing, the community of Sitio Belis could produce higher-quality coffee at higher volumes.

Raised drying beds at Sitio Belis

With Kickstarter support from friends, family, and Philippine coffee supporters, and with the local community's blessing, Kalsda built its first wet mill in Sitio Belis. Here, they installed a mechanical depulper and built raised drying beds. At the mill, they purchased cherries from farmers and offered incentives to pick ripe, red cherries. Although founded by Kalsada, they trained and hired the same farmers to work the wet mill. The hope was that, in time, farmers would want to take ownership of the Sitio Belis mill.

As Kalsada has grown over the years and has expanded this centralized mill model to 3 other locations, harvest numbers for Kalsada Company as a whole have slowly increased, and quality has improved. At Sitio Belis, farmers are paid premium prices for their cherries, as they no longer need incentives to pick ripe cherries, as this has become their new standard. Now, more than 100 smallholder family farmers contribute to Sitio Belis coffee lots.

As people walk down the path towards the wet mill, they will see the Sitio Bellis dry mill.

Up until now, farmers in Sitio Belis continue to sort and remove parchment by hand. But this will soon change. Just a few minutes' walk above the wet mill, a dry mill is being built by the Sitio Belis farmers themselves. The dry mill, which will be co-owned by Kalsada Coffee and Sitio Belis farmers, is set to open in January 2026. The dry mill will be able to remove parchment, sort green coffees, and prepare them for export. It will also include a small mechanical dryer to help dry coffee on wet, rainy days during the harvest season. 

While the men of Sitio Belis are building the dry mill, the strong women of Sitio Belis easily carry a total of 50kg bags of cement at a time down to the construction site.

We’ve purchased various lots from Kalsada over the years, but this washed lot from Sitio Belis remains our favorite crowdpleaser from all of the Kalsada mills. It has a citrus acidity, with toothsome notes of muscovado sugar and latik–or toasted coconut curds, which are commonly used as toppings for Filipino desserts. As a medium-light roast, it’s tasty on its own or with a splash of milk and well-suited to numerous brew methods.

Tere Domine, Country Director of Kalsada Coffee, shows us new coffee trees on leased lands in Sitio Belis. This area, managed by other Sitio Belis farmers, will serve as a model farm for other farmers looking to improve their practices. If climate conditions are stable, these trees should bear fruit in the next few years!

The completion of the dry mill will mark a new chapter for Sitio Belis and Kalsada coffee. Together, they’ll be able to work more efficiently and produce more coffee–meaning that, in the coming years, we may start to see Sitio Belis featured in more roasteries. We look forward to seeing Sitio Belis and Kalsada as a whole grow in the years to come. We are excited about the possibility of purchasing more coffee down the road and sharing some of the finest specialty coffee of the Philippines!