Barako coffee, explained.
The Philippines' Liberica.

“Kapeng Barako” is coffee made from Coffea liberica, grown mainly in Batangas and Cavite, south of Manila. Where the world's coffee is almost entirely two species — Arabica and Robusta — Liberica is the rare third, under 2% of global production. The name comes from the Tagalog for a wild boar: strength, stubbornness, a certain machismo.

For a country that grows all four commercial coffee species, Barako is the one that's most distinctly its own — a heritage coffee with no real equivalent anywhere else.

In the 1800s the Philippines was one of the world's significant coffee exporters, and Batangas Barako was at the center of it. Then, late in the century, coffee leaf rust swept through and devastated the crop across the country and much of Asia. The industry never fully recovered, and Barako shrank from an export powerhouse to a regional heritage drink.

It survived because people kept drinking it — strong, black, part of the culture of the region — not because it was easy to grow or sell. That's the backdrop to its current revival: the heritage never left.

Bold and full-bodied, with a smoky, woody, slightly nutty character and notably low acidity — the near-opposite of a bright washed Ethiopia. Its signature is the aroma: floral and fruity in a way often compared to jackfruit, which no Arabica or Robusta smells like.

It's a savory, heavy, unmistakable cup. Polarizing, honestly — some drinkers find it too much — but no one forgets it, and a carefully-processed modern Liberica can be far more refined than the rough roadside version its reputation is built on.

The reason is climate. Arabica — the source of most fine coffee — is increasingly squeezed by heat, drought, and disease as the world warms. Liberica tolerates all three far better, and grows at low altitudes where Arabica can't.

In 2025, research reframed Liberica as three distinct species— each with different climate strengths — and the specialty sector, including researchers at Kew and voices within the Specialty Coffee Association, began treating it as a serious future crop rather than a curiosity. For the Philippines, with its living Barako tradition, that's a heritage head start on a coffee the rest of the world is only now re-learning.

The trees are giants — up to around 18 metres, more forest tree than the shrubby Arabica of the highlands. The cherries are large, and the beans are bigger and asymmetric, with a distinctive hooked tip. All of which makes it harder to harvest and process, and part of why it stayed niche.

And to retire one myth: despite the tough-guy name, Liberica carries the least caffeineof the three commercial species — below Robusta, and by some measures below Arabica. Barako's strength is in its body and aroma, not the buzz.