At Coffee Quality Institute (CQI), our mission is carried forward by dedicated educators who bring knowledge, build connections, and help strengthen coffee communities around the world. This year, we are honored to recognize Rosario Cruz from the Philippines as CQI Educator of the Year 2025.
Rosario has long been a champion of coffee education, quality, and community empowerment. Her work—from earning top-level CQI certifications to leading national competitions and expanding quality education throughout the Philippines—represents her commitment to excellence and collaboration. In her own words, Rosario reflects on her journey, her recent milestones, and what continues to inspire her work.
What accomplishment of 2024 are you most proud of?
In terms of personal accomplishments, 2024 is the year I finished my QP3 Expert Level Certification. The final ten day stay in Colombia under the CQI QP3 Field Intensive program was truly very enriching in terms of farm and post-harvest processing knowledge. Meeting so many attendees in the same class from different producing countries and learning from the discussions amongst the experts from TECNiCAFE and various universities was inspiring. I wish to be able to contribute the same educational approach to our coffee community in the Philippines. The year 2024 was also the year when I finally become a QP2 PHP Robusta Professional Instructor.
Most importantly, 2024 is the first year for our school, the Barista and Coffee Academy of Asia (BCAA), to conduct the Philippine Coffee Quality Competition (PCQC), a yearly green coffee competition in our country sponsored by the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Trade and Industry, all on our own. This competition is a major project accomplishment of the PhilCAFE project of ACDI/VOCA and CQI since 2019. It is supported by the USDA. The project ended in 2023, making 2024 the first year for the Philippines to sustainably run the green competition on its own.
What has the past year brought to you, as a professional and as a person?
The past year brought a lot of learning opportunities to me as a coffee professional and as a CQI Educator. It is an inspiring year that brought many ideas on how meaningful intervention in regenerative agriculture and science-based approach on post-harvest activities can have an impact on our farming activities in the coffee producing regions of the Philippines. This is a big takeaway idea from the CQI QP3 Field Intensive lectures in Colombia.
How has working with CQI helped you to impact the Philippine coffee industry?
Working with a reputable organization such as the CQI has provided the framework of providing quality coffee education in our country. CQIs Vision of improving the lives of the communities, wherever it is present, provides the foundation of creating bigger, sustainable and impactful projects for Educators and collaborators like me.
It starts with providing education to the coffee communities. From there it branches to a bigger network of collaboration amongst stakeholders in the value chain. Our experience in the Philippines was that of providing quality coffee education through the CQI system. This approach created a team of Q Graders and Post Harvest Professionals who went out to the fields, the coffee communities, connecting with farmers, producers, state universities, local government units, national government agencies, and creating a common goal of improving the quality of coffee from our country. Coffee education created a convergence point where every coffee stakeholder feels the need to connect, support and assist in the growth of the Philippine coffee industry.
We must admit that there is a lot of noise in coffee education. But whom do we trust for guidance? As Educators, I think we need to align with those organizations whose efforts truly and visibly show impactful changes wherever they become involved.
Why do you support CQI?
I support CQI because I trust the way it provides visible changes in the communities where it works with. It operates true to its vision. No organization is perfect. But it is these imperfections that act as the bolt that keep it together. Realizing there is still a lot of work to be done is a kind of humility that propels reinvention towards improvement. As a visionary myself, I am excited about the future that CQI can continuously create not just in providing quality coffee education but also in creating impactful changes in many different coffee producing regions of the world.
Congratulations, Rosario. Your passion, dedication, and leadership have touched many lives. Thank you for your tireless work to improve coffee education and build stronger communities. Your efforts inspire not just the Philippines—but the global coffee world.
Rosario was recognized as CQI’s Educator of the Year for 2025 and received her award during a special celebration hosted by Strada Coffee in Jakarta—our sincere thanks to the sponsors who helped make this meaningful recognition possible. Along with Strada they include Simalem Specialty Coffee, Greenlot Coffee, Coffee Beyond Borders, Coffee Trade Factory, William Edison and Indonesia Specialty Coffee Campus.
