Bukidnon Coffee: Fat Seed Visits Finca de Garcés
A closer look at award-winning Philippine coffee, from the farm to our roastery.
We spend a lot of time thinking about coffee. Tasting it, roasting it, talking about it, and finding another reason to put the kettle on.
At The Fat Seed Cafe + Roastery, we source green coffee beans and roast them for our cafés, home brewers and wholesale partners. Getting to know the people growing those beans is one of our favourite parts of the job. Especially when it takes us somewhere like Bukidnon.
With Bryant, our licensed Q-Grader, bringing his expertise to how we taste and evaluate coffee, there’s plenty to discuss at the cupping table. A farm visit takes that conversation further. We get to see the plants, ask questions about processing, and understand the decisions behind the coffees we’re excited to roast.
At Finca de Garcés, there was a lot to be excited about.
Finca de Garcés: Award-Winning Coffee from Bukidnon
In New Eden, Pangantucan, on the foothills of Mount Kalatungan, Manolito “Bords” Garces and his family have been busy. A third-generation farmer, Bords already had experience with sugarcane, rubber, oil palm, rice and corn when he began growing coffee with his wife, Gemma, and their family in 2020.
Their pandemic project soon gave the Philippine coffee community something to talk about. In 2023, Finca de Garcés won Best Arabica and Best Natural Processed Arabica at the Philippine Coffee Quality Competition, scoring 86 points for its Natural Sweet Coffee. In 2025, the farm took first place in the competition’s Estate Farm category. 2023 awards · 2025 results
Naturally, we wanted a closer look.
The farm itself was beautiful. Mist drifted through the trees, green stretched in every direction, and it was easy to get distracted by the view. We spent a day exploring Finca de Garcés, visiting its nursery, and seeing the newer developments at Granja Alegre. Walking through it with Bords, though, meant there was always something beyond the scenery to notice.
Getting to Know Bords
Our team first reached out to Bords after hearing about his reputation in Philippine coffee. Our lead roaster, Kevin Lee, later met him and Melissa on a trip to Bukidnon, so this visit built on a connection that had already begun.
Although we only had a day at the farm, we spent four days in Bords’ company around the Southeast Asia Green Coffee Competition. That gave us time for the conversations that don’t quite fit into a farm tour: running a business, taking chances, and where Philippine coffee might go next.
Bords spoke about local cooperatives struggling to earn enough and the opportunities he saw in coffee. He also credited a Q Processing class in Davao as an important starting point in his journey. He has plenty of ambition, a deep faith, and a curiosity that keeps him looking for the next thing he can improve.
There was a familiar face at the farm, too. Novie Valerio, who was consulting for Finca de Garcés, had met Bryant during a coffee processing class in Bukidnon in December 2019. Reconnecting years later and seeing her work with the farm made the visit that much more personal.
One conversation with Bords has stayed with us in particular. He put it this way: the best fertilizer you can give your farm is your own footsteps.
We knew exactly what he meant.
At Fat Seed, we believe in being around for the everyday work. Spending time on the café floor, listening to the team, tasting what’s coming out of the roastery. You notice things when you’re there. You ask better questions. You catch the small problem before it becomes everybody’s problem.
Apparently, farms and cafés have that in common.
What Goes into Good Bukidnon Coffee?
As we walked, Bords showed us how the farm used to look, what they had changed, and what they were working on next. The newer developments reflected lessons from previous years. Even when something was going well, he was still looking for ways to make it better.
That approach was especially clear in the processing. Bords uses controlled comparisons, pays close attention to standards, and takes feedback from roasters across the Philippines seriously. He wants to understand why something works so he can keep improving it.
As green coffee buyers and roasters, we appreciate that level of detail. What we taste at the cupping table gives us questions to bring back to the producer. Learning more about a lot’s processing helps us understand what we’re tasting and how we might approach it in the roast.
That exchange matters. It gives us more to work with when choosing coffees, and it gives producers feedback on how their work is coming through in the cup.
Seeing all of this up close made the competition results feel very understandable. There was a lot of patient, deliberate work behind them.
Good Coffee Begins with Healthy Seedlings
You could easily spend a farm visit thinking about the next harvest. Bords had us thinking much further ahead.
In the nursery, he walked us through the attention given to seeds, roots and young plants, including fertilization and pest management. For him, a good seedling is an investment in the years that follow. These are the trees a farmer will care for, depend on, and build a livelihood around.
His plans also reach beyond Finca de Garcés. He spoke about sharing opportunities with other Bukidnon farmers and helping Philippine coffee earn greater recognition and value. As seedlings from his nursery reach other growers, some of that work has the potential to take root elsewhere.
It’s an exciting thought: standing among rows of small plants and thinking about the farms, harvests and cups they could eventually become.
For Fat Seed, supporting local coffee means helping those coffees find customers who will come back for another bag. We want to choose them carefully, roast them well, and give people good reasons to keep drinking Philippine coffee.
Bringing Finca de Garcés to Fat Seed’s Roastery
This is the part we get to bring home.
Our plans for Finca de Garcés include seasonal releases of its Ethiopian landrace coffee in different processes as availability allows. We’re also looking at Catimor lots, including coffees for our espresso blends.
There’s room to enjoy both. Some coffees invite you to slow down and explore what a particular variety or process can taste like. Others become part of the morning routine. It’s the espresso you look forward to before the day gets going. We put care into selecting and roasting both.
Through our cafés, retail beans and wholesale coffee partnerships, we get to introduce these producers’ work to more people. We want you to know where your coffee comes from, but we also want that first sip to make you glad you ordered it.
Philippine Coffee for Your Home or Café
Fat Seed roasts coffee for home brewers and supplies roasted beans wholesale to cafés and businesses. We also work in green coffee sourcing, drawing on the producer relationships and evaluation that go into selecting our own coffees.
Trips like this remind us why we enjoy the work so much. We went to Bukidnon to see the farm and spend time with the people behind the beans. We came home with a better understanding of their coffee, plenty to think about, and an appetite for what comes next.
Bords keeps showing up for his farm. We’ll keep showing up at the roastery and we’re looking forward to sharing what comes out of it.
Find your next bag among Fat Seed’s current coffee offerings, or get in touch about wholesale roasted beans and green coffee sourcing. Finca de Garcés coffees are available seasonally, depending on the harvest and lots on hand.