Auction report · curated by Cascara
Gloria Lagawan tops the 2026 auction.
It starts with the cherryOn 7 June 2026, at the close of the Philippine Coffee Expo in Makati, a washed lot from Malaybalay, Bukidnon drew the highest price of the green-coffee auction. It belonged to Gloria Lagawan — the top-scoring producer of this year's Philippine Coffee Quality Competition. Her 117-kilogram lot sold for ₱4,900 a kilo to H Proper Coffee Roasters: ₱573,300 from a single morning.
Top price
₱4,900 / kg
2.45× the ₱2,000 floor
The lot
₱573,300
117 kg, washed
Cupping score
86.41
Highest of PCQC 2026
Who is Gloria Lagawan.
Gloria Lagawan farms in Malaybalay, in the highlands of Bukidnon — the stretch of Mindanao around Mount Kitanglad that now leads the country's arabica tables. Her lot topped the 2026 Philippine Coffee Quality Competition with a score of 86.41, the highest of the year.
The cup is washed and bright: lychee and passion fruit on top, apple and cranberry underneath. That is a clean, floral, tea-like profile — the kind of clarity a washed process is meant to deliver, and the kind that judges reward at the top of the scale.
The lot opened at a ₱2,000 floor and was bid up to ₱4,900 a kilo — the highest price of this year's auction. For 117 kilograms, that is ₱573,300 paid straight back toward the farm.
What the auction is.
The Philippine Coffee Quality Competition — the PCQC — is the country's annual blind-cupping competition. Producers send in lots; certified judges score them; the highest-scoring lots earn a place at the auction held during the Philippine Coffee Expo. The 2026 edition ran 5-7 June at SPACE at One Ayala in Makati, with the auction on the closing day.
The auction is the part that matters most to a farm. A green lot that would otherwise sell at a commodity rate is bid on directly by roasters, in the room, by the kilo. The floor price is the opening number; the hammer price is what quality actually fetches once roasters compete for it. ₱2,000 to ₱4,900 is the distance between a baseline and a top-of-the-field washed arabica.
The buyer
A Mindanao roaster took a Mindanao lot.
The winning bid came from H Proper Coffee Roasters — a specialty roaster headquartered in Cagayan de Oro, with cafes in Makati, Ortigas and Quezon City. There is a neatness to it: a roaster rooted in Mindanao buying the top lot from the Bukidnon highlands, a few hours from its own roastery.
Makati
See their lineup in the cellar — and watch for Gloria Lagawan's lot once it's roasted and released. →
Where it sits
A Clean-corner coffee.
Cascara reads every coffee against a four-corner Process Spectrum. A washed, high-grown arabica carrying lychee, passion fruit and crisp apple-cranberry acidity lands in the Clean corner — clarity, bright acidity, a clean finish. If that is the cup that draws you, it is the corner to calibrate toward.
Bright, floral, tea-like. Gloria's lot lives here.
Balanced, chocolatey, familiar.
Juicy, fruit-forward, sweet.
Funky, fermented, unconventional.
Why Bukidnon keeps winning.
Gloria Lagawan's win is not an outlier. The 2026 leaderboard leaned heavily on Bukidnon and the wider Mindanao highlands — altitude, volcanic soil and a maturing culture of careful processing are pushing the region's arabica to the top of the national tables year after year.
That is the story worth following. Philippine specialty coffee is no longer a curiosity; it is a field deep enough to hold a competition, an auction, and a clear top of the scale. The cellar tracks the roasters working with it.
Common questions.
Who won the Philippine Coffee Expo 2026 auction?
Gloria Lagawan, a producer from Malaybalay, Bukidnon, drew the top price at the 2026 Philippine Coffee Expo green-coffee auction. Her washed lot scored 86.41 in the Philippine Coffee Quality Competition — the highest-scoring lot of the year — and sold for ₱4,900 a kilo.
How much did the top lot sell for?
₱4,900 per kilo. The lot was 117 kilograms, so the producer earned ₱573,300 from a single auction. That is almost two and a half times the ₱2,000 floor price the lot opened at.
Who bought Gloria Lagawan's coffee?
H Proper Coffee Roasters — a specialty roaster headquartered in Cagayan de Oro, with cafes in Makati, Ortigas and Quezon City. A Mindanao roaster bought a Mindanao lot. H Proper is listed in the Cascara cellar, so once they roast and release it, you can track their lineup from their roaster page.
What is the PCQC?
The Philippine Coffee Quality Competition. Lots from producers across the country are cupped and scored by certified judges. The top-scoring lots are then auctioned to roasters at the Philippine Coffee Expo. It is the clearest annual signal of where Philippine specialty coffee actually is — and the mechanism that pays quality back to the farm.
What does a cupping score of 86.41 mean?
Specialty coffee is scored on a 100-point scale. Anything above 80 is graded specialty; the mid-80s and up is the top tier, where clarity, sweetness and a clean finish all hold together. An 86.41 is a serious score for a washed arabica, and it topped the 2026 field.
How high do Philippine coffee auctions go?
Prices vary by year, by lot, and by how many roasters are bidding in the room. In 2025, the top auction lot reached ₱9,900 a kilo. Gloria Lagawan's 2026 lot drew ₱4,900 a kilo — the highest at this year's auction, and well above its ₱2,000 floor. Either way, an auction price is many times the commodity rate a farm would otherwise see.
Where can I taste coffee like this?
Washed, high-grown Bukidnon arabica with this kind of fruit clarity sits in the Clean corner of the Cascara Process Spectrum — bright, floral, tea-like. Calibrate your palate and the cellar routes you to the Philippine and washed lots closest to it.
Read next.
Philippine Coffee Expo 2026 — a curator's guide
The event itself — dates, venue, and the roasters worth seeking out on the floor.
Specialty coffee in the Philippines — a 2026 guide
The national map — Manila, Baguio, Cebu, Davao, and the Bukidnon highlands.
Coffee processing methods, explained
What "washed" does to the cup — and why it suits a bright, high-grown arabica.
Author · Gil Erez, Founder of Cascara · 7 June 2026