Abegail Manalansan – Coffee Belt

" Do it, think later", catchy advise from Abegail Manalansan to those who wanted to start an artisan business. She further added, sometimes doing so much research may end up with analysis paralysis. Oftentimes, you have to experience failure, fail fast, problem solve, do it again, don't stop and you will eventually grow the business.

Abegail Manalansan was from Olongapo Subic, migrated to Australia in 2012, and cyrrently resides in Macquarie Park. She finished Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering at UP Diliman. She is currently working full time in the area of e-commerce and digital products at a Construction supply company.

She developed her love of Philippine coffee while growing up having her father regularly going overseas, looking for his kape barako every time he comes home. Sharing her Dad's love of Philippine coffee, she craved for it during the pandemic not being able to go back home. With Australia's well known coffee culture, she was surprised to find there was no Philippine coffee beans available here. So she decided to bring them in, naming her artisan business Coffee Belt.

One of the suppliers she chose is called Kalsada, they partner with coffee producers in the Philippines to produce quality coffee beans. Abegail, coming from a farming family, understands the plights of farmers, thus willing to pay the high cost in exchange for quality and ethical single origin Philippine coffee beans.

There are 3 interesting points we chatted in this interview - firstly training she underwent to understand the art of coffee making, and the business aspects of it, secondly, webinar she attended hosted in the Philippines to understand the process of growing coffee beans, and meeting other importers, final point is her initially assumed target market. The way Abegail approaches her artisan business with an analytical mindset may perhaps be contributed by her engineering background.

Abegail's aim for Coffee Belt is to make single origin Philippine coffee a household name, making it part of Australia's well known coffee culture. Don't miss the interview tonight by listening to Radio Tagumpay from 6pm to 8pm tonight at Triple H 100.1FM or livestream at https://www.triplehfm.com.au. Design Talk towards the last half hour (between 7:30pm to 8pm).

To find out more about Coffee Belt:

website: https://coffeebelt.com.au/

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