RE: Wander Vlog: The Best Coffee I Ever Had Was in Oz!
Your story isn't uncommon. I hear it's not actually that hard to get coffee in the Philippines...there are even some farms that grow coffee beans...but most places have instant. You just have to actually look for the coffee beans or coffee from beans that's brewed correctly. Americans like coffee, but most of ours is pretty bad too. Not instant though. That's only in certain places, like hotel rooms.
I myself like good cheap coffee. I carefully shop around for coffee that I like that isn't expensive. The real crazies need fresh beans of particular rare varieties. Well...no...the real crazies like beans taken from feces. Some that are really into coffee go to a lot of effort and expense to get really good beans though. That might be really hard to get in the Philippines, but I imagine if you shopped around a bit, you could probably find places that sell some pretty good beans. Just probably not everywhere.
I heard that there are good beans from the Mountain Province and somewhere in Mindanao. I found one at a day market but they sell it at a ridiculously high price. Anything they find to be good here will be sold at a much higher price than their real value. And it's not the farmers who get the profit but those greedy businessmen.
We do have cat poop here too - coffee alamid/ kopi luwak. But way too expensive and I found a video that shows them locking up the cats. I tried it in Bali years ago before learning about the conditions of the wild cats :/
I would never try it. People are fucking nuts. I have no intention of eating something processed through an animals digestive track.
I wonder if all the good-ish coffee beans are so expensive. I saw pictures of coffee beans at markets when I was considering moving there. I would imagine there have to be at least some that aren't exorbitantly priced.
There are plenty that are overpriced here. $15 for a small bag is quite common for many overpriced mediocre coffees. I prefer somewhere around $2.50-$6, but not like crappy normal stuff, just cheap, but good.
Considering the cheaper cost of living and income, it should be possible to find at the very least similar prices, if not possibly slightly more expensive. But, with the lower cost of living, plus the fact that I don't drink a ton of coffee, even a bit more to get a good coffee would probably be worth it.
The Bucket List movie inspired me to drink cat poop coffee lol
Maybe the expensive coffee here is still cheaper relative to the US prices. If you go to the areas near these farms I'm sure you'll get it cheap. Then just brew it yourself.
That's really easiest anyway. At least when you're not out of the house all the time. Especially if you grow to like a morning coffee before work.