It must be all the good quality coffee coursing through his veins, but if you have a chat about the brew with Robert Francisco, be prepared to be met with such enthusiasm and verve that if you were not a big fan of coffee before, you’ll probably be jumping out of your skin to arm yourself with a coffeemaker and a special blend from his collections before you even leave his company.
Robert is a big coffee enthusiast. He knows good coffee and can tell you about it even if he’s blindfolded. He practically oozes it, breathes, lives and perhaps even dreams about coffee when asleep. He beams when he talks about coffee.
His passion for coffee is genetic, however. Robert’s family is just as addicted, and it was in one of those coffee drinking nights that they decided to put up a coffee business.
“Ever since, they appointed me as the person who’ll handle the coffee business. We decided retailing and then a coffee store to guarantee consistent quality. And, because I was OC (obsessive compulsive),” he paused, laughing, “I decided to roast my own coffee in 1994, made sure the coffee was good, buy my own coffee (to roast) and made sure the coffee that I produced was uniform.”
But then, it became too big for just one coffee shop. So Robert started supplying small cafes just to keep the business rolling.
“Then it started to boom, so I supplied cafes, restaurants, then I got the dealership of espresso machines, then tuloy-tuloy na. It started from a desire to have a coffee shop then. But, of course, what made us decide to put up a coffee shop was because we were all coffee drinkers — we love drinking coffee. In a family of 12, say, we consume 40 to 45 cups in a night, two to three cups each,” Robert says.
He gave up his share many years ago in the family coffee business and let his sister run it. Today, he is the president of Boyd’s Coffee Co., Philippines, the country’s premier supplier of gourmet coffee.
Freshness, safety guaranteed
At Boyd’s, Robert always makes sure that the coffee they sell is fresh by being freshly roasted. “For 10 years Boyd’s has always had this policy. We’re not into retailing; we don’t have any inventory that is on standby in case somebody orders so we have something to deliver. We roast as you order — we roast them fresh,” he emphasizes.
“My brand is not out there, it’s specialized for those who want it, so that’s what makes us different. And since we’re not in the groceries, the consumers of our coffee have boasting rights. Meaning, if you bought my coffee, it’s not commercially available; your coffee is made just for you. A coffee roasted fresh just for you,” he said.
When you order coffee at Boyd’s, it goes through a strict process of checking and double checking, degassing and quality control. But Robert decided to go beyond that. “It’s even beyond safety control; we’re putting the safety control to guarantee safety. Quality has always been there, granted, but I’ve always done that because I’m the one behind the roasting. That’s the coffee I also drink everyday when I come to work. I have to drink my first cup here and that coffee I drink comes directly from the roasting process so it’s extremely fresh compared to any retail store in the Philippines.”
Robert is also pushing Boyd’s to be the first HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) certified in the country. “We will probably be the first in the Philippines to get it. We’re under audit right now for that. In order to have to be audited, you have to show documentation that you have a system that guarantees your coffee is at least 95 percent food safe,” he explains.
The HACCP system is a scientific, rational and systematic approach to identification, assessment and control of hazards during production, processing, manufacturing, preparation and use of food to ensure that food is safe when consumed (i.e., it does not present an unacceptable risk to health). With the HACCP system, food safety control is integrated into the design of the process rather than the present ineffective system of end-product testing. Therefore, the HACCP system provides a preventive and, thus, cost-effective approach to food safety.
“So in order to drink coffee, you look for the safe choice, and beyond it the one with good quality. You may have good taste, but you don’t know the source. The source could be contaminated, might have come from a farm that have contamination of pesticides or fertilizers,” expounds Robert.
According him, there’s no such thing as organic — what we know as such are just certified organically grown. Being organically grown, however, is still not a guarantee of safety because there might still be contamination during storage.
“That’s why we have our coffee tested for pesticides and fertilizers. Just after purchase before roasting, we have it tested in labs. We have those from outside sources. We’re very stringent now, it’s very expensive to do, but it guarantees and gives you peace of mind that my coffee is very safe from salmonella, E.coli, coliform… lahat yan.”
The Boyd’s coffee warehouse is so strict about safety that when you go there, be prepared to have your temperature tested by the guards before you can step inside.
Another reason for Boyd’s Coffee being different from the rest is the source. Robert emphasizes that a good source is a secret to good coffee. “Sourcing the coffee, given that all our competition are the same, pagandahan na lang ng source ng supply ng coffee, because if we’re all roasting the same coffee from the same source, then we’re all identical.”
“Control your source and it makes you guarantee that your supply is always consistent, high quality, always available and doesn’t change,” he adds.
Different blends for different whims
“We do come up with different blends or combinations per client and we call that the signature line or signature blend. But in my line of coffee, we have very limited coffee. We have the breakfast blend, the espresso Italiano, espresso Americano, Veranda, the Midnight, the Sunset, and then we have the 100 percent Arabica, full roast 100 percent Arabica premium roast. And for the customers who want flavor, we tweak it a little bit to make it unique for them,” Robert shares.
“Our newest blend is called Dawn blend. It’s an offshoot of Midnight as we tweaked it a little bit to make it different. It’s very light, very refreshing — it’s good for a black cup of coffee in the morning, but it’s too mild for a cappuccino, that’s why you have the Midnight, the all day coffee. Then we have the Twilight, which is the offshoot of Veranda. These are different times or stages of day usage and not all-purpose coffee. I create blends that I believe, in my interpretation, are good for breakfast, for midnight, for early morning, takipsilim na, or what’s good for espresso and what’s good for a relaxing afternoon in the veranda. These things I create,” he enthuses.
An excellent brew
What makes good coffee? “Its aroma and taste,” Robert says, “and most of the time it starts with aroma. When you grind it, it smells. When it’s brewing, it smells. When you taste it, it’s either sweet or bitter; don’t bring in sour or salty. Good coffee should not be sour or should not be bitter. But if there is sourness because there’ll be a little acidity, it should be the crispiness of the coffee. So it’s either bitter versus roasted, it’s acceptable. Then it’s mild caramelization; it’s very hard to detect it. Third, the sourness should not be extreme — it should be kiliti, not over extracted or sobrang piniga na, it never should taste like vinegar,” he explains.
Farming, roasting and brewing are the steps to coffee making. Farming is preparation, roasting is flavor enhancing and brewing is the extraction. All are important and must be balanced in order to create good coffee, says Robert. Sourcing the coffee is the secret because one can control it.
“To have good coffee, the soil must be very important; the age of the tree, the management of the farm. Pag matanda na ang tree and others bata nagko-cross pollinate so pangit ang labas. Farming is science also. So you prune to cut undesirable branches, you harvest at the right moment and all of these will result in good coffee,” he continues.
Robert, for all his knowledge, refuses to be called a coffee connoisseur. “I’m a coffee enthusiast and there’s no parameter set globally for coffee masters, unlike for wines for which they have a sommelier. There’s a ceiling for wines, but not coffee. The point is I’m very strict with the taste: it must be chocolaty, very lively, very rich and very robust.”
And if he were a coffee, what blend would he be? “Black, no frills, an OC, a creature of habit, black coffee that could be changed or tweaked. May konting compromise, but not too much,” Robert muses.
Among his creations, however, his favorite is Midnight coffee. “Midnight is my favorite blend. It’s the right formulation, though I tweak it now and then. Premium roast for me is not black, not carbon, not pait. Gusto ko under-roasted, parang mahogany, for that is when caramelization is at its peak; beyond that is already uling. I like my coffee black, no sugar,” he reiterates.
Last year, Robert released a coffee table book titled A Coffee Journal. “It’s an entertaining book, but also a historical book. I researched the history of coffee from beginning to end. It’s the first authentic coffee table book on coffee here,” he says.
“We have no history of coffee in the Philippines, but from my research, it was brought by the Recollects in Batangas. The one who claimed to be the first to plant coffee was a barangay captain and not a priest. It’s a journal; I retraced my route kaya naging journal,” he says of his book, which is available at Fully Booked branches, Ayala libraries, the Ayala Museum and a few coffee outlets.
When it comes to coffee, Robert Francisco will have you brewing in no time.
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