Finca de Garces: Ethiopian Genetics and Three Years of National Recognition from the Slopes of Mt. Kalatungan

Hope is the last one to die. There is a specific kind of belief that looks like delusion before it looks like anything else. It does not wait for evidence. It works backward from a future it has already decided on, doing today what needs to be done so something real can exist later. Most people call this stubbornness. Some call it faith. A few, the ones who turn out to be right, call it a plan.

In mid-2020, while the world was contracting, Lito and Gemma Garces planted coffee on the slopes of Mt. Kalatungan in Bukidnon. No guaranteed buyer. No competition record. No proof the soil would produce anything worth drinking. Three years later, the coffee won a national competition, and World Coffee Research confirmed what the trees already knew: Ethiopian genetics, wild and ancient, thriving in Philippine soil at 1,400 meters above sea level.

A Name Worth Keeping

Finca. De Garces.

Finca traces back to Old Spanish fincar, meaning "to remain," rooted in the idea of driving something into the ground, of fixing, of staying. In Latin American coffee culture, the great farms carry the word like a title: Finca La Esmeralda in Panama, Finca Hartmann in Chiriquí, Finca El Paraíso in Colombia. When Good Cup founder Gio Visitacion suggested the name, he was placing a family from Pangantucan, Bukidnon in the same sentence as the most respected coffee origins in the world.

De Garces. Of the Garces. The farm carries the family name because the farm is the family: Lito and Gemma, their children, processing consultant Novie Valerio, and farm manager Ramil, all rooted in Barangay New Eden, Pangantucan, Bukidnon, at 1,400 meters on the foothills of Mt. Kalatungan.

The Mountain That Feeds the Farm

Land with a history before it was a farm

Mt. Kalatungan rises 2,880 meters at its peak, the fifth highest mountain in the Philippines. Finca de Garces sits on its foothills between 1,300 and 1,400 meters, in the zone where the air cools and the rivers begin, part of one of the few areas in Bukidnon still covered in old-growth mossy forest.

The Talaandig, an indigenous people of the Kalatungan highlands, call this mountain Igmale'ng'en. For the Manobo who live on its slopes, it is where tribal knowledge originates, and outsiders need tribal permission and a ceremonial ritual before they can ascend. The forests have been protected across generations not by government declaration, but because the community has always understood something science would later confirm: the health of the mountain determines the health of everything grown below it.

What the Soil Is

Why the place has a flavor

The soil of Mt. Kalatungan is volcanic in origin, dark and mineral-rich, releasing iron, magnesium, and phosphorus that most soils only get through fertilization. Terroir, the idea that a place itself has a flavor, isn't metaphor here. Research published in Scientific Reports in 2025 found that soil and cherry bacterial communities differ measurably between shade and sun farms, and between farms that do and don't produce specialty-flavored coffee. The place is not backdrop. It's ingredient.

Above the coffee grow falcata trees, planted deliberately for what they do rather than how they look. Their canopy slows cherry ripening, letting sugars accumulate over a longer window. As a legume, falcata fixes nitrogen from the air and deposits it into the soil through fallen leaves. It also breaks the wind coming off Kalatungan's exposed slopes, protecting the coffee from physical stress. Novie Valerio and the farm team read what the soil needs season to season and respond to it, work the tree alone can't do.

What the Garces Family Added

Building before there was proof

The first decision that mattered was to plant at all. In mid-2020, during a global lockdown, with no buyer waiting and no competition record to point to, Lito and Gemma Garces chose to begin.

They built a nursery before the farm had produced a single cherry, raising seedlings in controlled conditions to strengthen roots and survival rates before planting them out, and to trial varieties before committing at scale.

Building a nursery before your trees have produced a single cherry, before you have any proof any of this will work, is hope made structural. Novie Valerio carries that same conviction from the nursery to the processing station. She measures brix levels, the sugar content of each cherry, before deciding on fermentation times. A ripe cherry typically reads between 18 and 22 degrees Brix; that number tells her whether a harvest is ready or needs more time on the branch. When asked what makes the farm different on a technical level, her answer is three things.

The environment. The fertilization management. The pest control.

Three Processes, One Place

Same cherry, three different coffees

Take a cherry from the same tree, the same mountain air, the same watershed. Process it three different ways, and the result is three completely different coffees.

Natural. The whole cherry dries intact on raised beds for weeks. As native microbes feed on the drying fruit, sugars and aromatic compounds migrate into the bean. At Finca de Garces: dark chocolate, green apple, durian, mangosteen. Bold and full-bodied.

Honey. The skin is removed, but the mucilage stays on during drying. As Barista Magazine documents, this keeps the mucilage in contact with the bean through one to three days of fermentation. At Finca de Garces: honey, orange, chamomile, grapes. Clean and approachable.

Full Moon Natural. Whole cherries dry slowly for gentle fermentation and enhanced sugar development. At Finca de Garces: kiwi, mandarin orange, orange blossom, honey. Vibrant but precise, with a silky mouthfeel and a clean finish.

What the DNA Test Confirmed

Ethiopian genetics, growing in Bukidnon

In 2023, Finca de Garces entered the Philippine Coffee Quality Competition. Their Natural Sweet Coffee scored 86 points, winning Best Arabica and Best Natural Processed Arabica, after less than two years of harvestable coffee.

As the Philippine Information Agency reported, the DNA test identified the farm's mother plant as carrying the genetics of an Ethiopian landrace variety, known for resilience, flavor complexity, and climate adaptability. How it reached Bukidnon remains unknown. It found soil that suited it, and became something that couldn't have come from anywhere else. The DOT Regional Director called the finding a source of pride that strengthens Bukidnon's reputation in the global coffee landscape.

DTI records confirm Finca de Garces earned national recognition again at the 2025 Philippine Coffee Quality Competition, where Manolito Garces scored 84.02, Top 1 Arabica Estate Farm nationally among more than 100 entries. Judges noted caramel, floral notes, orange peel zest, and a tea-like finish.

None of this was visible in 2020. None of it was guaranteed. The only thing that existed then was the belief, and the decision to act on it anyway. That is what this farm is: proof that the gap between planting and result can be crossed, as long as the belief that bridges it doesn't die first. Hope is the last one to die. As long as it's still alive, so is everything it was reaching for.

Barangay New Eden, Pangantucan, Bukidnon. 1,300 to 1,400 MASL.

Producers: Lito and Gemma Garces. Processing consultant: Novie Valerio.