Kapeng Barako - Proudly Our Own

Ever since the opening of a new road going to Tagaytay from Sta. Rosa, Silang Road has literally been the road less taken by motorists on the way to this cool and breezy city south of Manila. Back in the days, it was on Silang Road where most of the good stops have been for pasalubong and for lunch or dinner going back to Manila.

While there are fewer passersby and motorists, some of these local stores have remained standing as Tagaytay’s testament to fresh and good quality food. One of them is a small coffee shop, Nature’s Original Kapeng Barako, which continues to make coffee that is truly Filipino and undoubtedly, the best.

My family and I have always dropped by the quaint store owned by Mr. and Mrs. Jun Dimapilis. We were first lured by its “vintage” look from the outside and the huge words “Kapeng Barako” and “vegetarian” written on the store’s frontage. We’ve never seen those two words used in a single sentence or on the façade of just one store.

The doorbell chimes loudly as one enters the tiny store where upon setting foot, one is amazed at the number of lovely knick-knacks, saucers, cups, coffee makers that are on display. One’s eyes wanders at the shelves where you can check out a Star Wars’ Darth Vader telephone, a plastic panic button that customers can actually press, dessert plates that bear Monopoly signs and so much more. All these capture your attention and you suddenly forget what you came in the store for: coffee.

The store is run full-time by the Dimapilis family who regale customers with information on how to brew your coffee, where they get the beans and how they have been in the coffee business for a long time in this part of Cavite. It turns out that the family once supplied coffee to Rustans but that bigger competition with snazzier packaging had gotten most of their business from the company.

Small as the business may seem, Nature’s Original has their mission and vision – just like big corporations – to which they remain true to this very day. All the coffee they harvest are processed by the family to maintain the quality. And over the years, they have begun to offer not just the Kapeng Barako which is widely-known in Amadeo and Batangas, but nowadays, Kapeng Alamid or the coffee beans from civet cats which foreign coffee connosieurs buy at steep prices.

They also have several variants now including hazelnut coffee, rice coffee and other blends of Arabica, robusta and more. What draws us to Nature’s Original is also their ginger tea or “salabat” which comes in powder form and is already flavored with muscovado sugar. One teaspoon in a cup of hot water is enough to give you the calming soothness of ginger with a sweet taste that goes down well in the stomach.

Everything that the store sells is natural or pure in essence. They use our own ingredients and products that are harvested within the area or in their own small farm or from suppliers of natural and vegetarian food.

While waiting for your beans to be ground and re-packed or while getting your orders set, Mrs. Dimapilis is quick to offer customers some coffee or tea – for FREE. In a small corner of the tiny store, you can enjoy a sip of our very own Kapeng Barako which leaves you wondering why you even go to Starbucks at all. For here in this road less taken in Cavite lies a store that enlivens the spirit and gives you a new sense of wonder as it also sticks to a path that it has vowed to take for over 20 years – to bring Filipino coffee closer to the hearts of our own people and to awaken our souls to the many wonders that nature offers.