PCG Chair Dr. Mel Garcia, shares a cup of coffee with Gregory Packs Philippines brand executive Ken Ocampo, PCG executive director J De Torres, and PCG admin officer Cristy Elquiero. Jeeves De Veyra

MANILA -- The Philippine Coffee Guild (PCG) and Gregory Packs Philippines spotlight outdoor brewing and Filipino coffee in their Transit Café collaborations.

The Transit Cafés are weekend café pop-ups at ROX, Bratpack, and The Travel Club. These are the retail shops of Primer Group, the Philippine distributor of Gregory Packs.

Visitors who come to the stores can just like and follow Gregory Packs Philippines' and the PCG's social media pages to get a cup of freshly brewed coffee. The Transit Café is fully supported by PCG members who volunteer as baristas, lend equipment, contribute beans from Filipino coffee farmers, and other supplies.

Gregory Packs is an American brand that started out in the outdoor and hiking market. As this transitioned into the lifestyle category, the bags maintained the technical specifications to stand the wear and tear of outdoor adventure activities.

While specialty coffee and manual brewing became popular during the pandemic, an emerging trend is for people to take the coffee experience outdoors bringing their gear while cycling and hiking.

"Gregory powers you through a lifetime of experiences as coffee powers you through the day," commented Kenneth Ocampo, Gregory Packs Philippines' brand manager.

PCG's involvement in this is to promote the quality of Philippine coffee beans through the free coffee sampling from different farms and roasters.

Mel Garcia, the current chair of the PCG, mentioned that this was also a partnership with De La Salle University's coffee science program to have coffee conversations, promote coffee research, and put policies in place to enable the local coffee industry.

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"The reason why there's no policy is because there's no research. And the reason why there's no research, is because there's no constant conversations that feeds the researchers," Garcia said.

But with the popularity of coffee, he also cited that an increasing number of universities and colleges have expressed interest in having coffee science programs of their own.

The PCG hopes to expand this limited in-store collaboration to hikes and rides alongside outdoor brewing with a social component with the farmers in the future. 

They are also behind the Philippine Coffee Expo to be held on May 9 to 11 at SPace in OneAyala.

Catch the Transit Café on the following dates and locations: February 21-23 at The Travel Club, SM Mall of Asia; March 14-16 at Bratpack, Robinsons Magnolia; March 28-30 at ROX, SM Megamall; and April 11-13 at Bratpack Trinoma. 

Check out the social media pages of Gregory Packs Philippines and PCG for more updates.