As the 2023/2024 harvest season comes to a close, the Kalsada Krew would like to take the time to mark a recent milestone for our communities in Mindanao. On December 9, 2023, we opened our first dry coffee mill in Barangay Pigtauranan, Pangantucan, Bukidnon. This dry mill, called the Stacy Wang Ramos Mill—named after the daughter of a couple who has been a crucial part of Kalsada’s growth—centralizes the hulling and sorting of coffee for the farmers of Pangantucan and other towns of Bukidnon.
The Stacy Wang Ramos Mill from the outside
The commemorative plaque
With its advanced equipment, the mill reduces farmers’ costs and increases the quality of their coffee, paving the way for increased income
During the 2023/2024 harvest season, the mill’s huller and sorter significantly reduced difficulty and time spent hand sorting
We asked Roy Ramos—Stacy’s father, an avid coffee drinker, and a supporter of Kalsada—to celebrate the establishment of the mill in his own words:
“It is with much joy that our five-year long dream—to help build a modern mechanized coffee mill for Kalsada and its specialty coffee farmers in Bukidnon, and in memory of our daughter Stacy Wang Ramos—is now up and running.
Our daughter Stacy would have been proud. She enjoyed visiting and exploring the Philippines. She would have been an all-in advocate for a women-run enterprise like Kalsada, making a difference and bringing Philippine coffee quality back to levels at par with the world’s most-sought after beans.
Stacy traveling the world
The Wang Ramos family: Roy, Ye, and Stacy
Our Kalsada journey reflects this. We first discovered their Sitio Belis and Naguey beans at, of all places, Andytown’s coffee shop in San Francisco’s Salesforce Park. There, we had a serendipitous pour-over surprise that led to meeting founder Carmel Laurino in their charming Escolta office. We visited the farms and farmers in Benguet and Bukidnon with co-founder and country manager Tere Domine, listening to her quality improvement and expansion dreams. When we had their Sitio San Roque beans as pour-over and cappuccino, we were once again wowed.
We hope the Stacy Mill will be an enduring legacy for and from our daughter. Our hope is that will create more opportunities for Pigtauranan’s hard-working coffee farmers, and be a template for other promising specialty coffee farming communities working with Kalsada across the Philippines.”
The Kalsada Krew in Barangay Pigtauranan, Pangantucan, Bukidnon
Written by Roy Ramos