Coffee. Tea. Cocoa. The three have a surprisingly rich, complex, and layered history in the Philippines. How did they arrive here, and what effect did they have in the archipelago’s colonial period?

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Thanks to Beach Reads Book Club (based in The Beach House cafe in Kapitolyo) for hosting the live premiere of this episode last July 5.

References:

Acabado, Stephen (4 May 2025). “[Time Trowel] A drunk history of the Philippines.” Rappler. https://www.rappler.com/voices/thought-leaders/time-trowel-drunk-history-philippines/

Edgar, Blake (2010). “The Power of Chocolate.” Archaeology, 63(6), pp. 20-25. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41780626

Doeppers, Daniel (2016). Feeding Manila in Peace and War, 1850-1945. Ateneo de Manila University Press.

Topik, Steven (2003). The World Coffee Market in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, from Colonial to National Regimes. GEHN Conference, Bankside, London.

Sonnad, Nikhil (11 January 2018). “Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea.” Vox.

Chia, Lucille (2006). “The Butcher, the Baker, and the Carpenter: Chinese Sojourners in the Spanish Philippines and Their Impact on Southern Fujian (Sixteenth-Eighteenth Centuries).” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 49(4), pp. 509-534.

Lanzona, Claudine (2019). “The Search Party.” Grid.

“Cocoa (cacao).” (n.d.) Plant Village. https://plantvillage.psu.edu/topics/cocoa-cacao/infos

Crawford, John (1852). “History of Coffee.” Journal of the Statistical Society of London, 15(1), pp. 50-58.

This faraway empire shows up in unexpected pages of our history. (Listen to S7E2 before this one.)

As the United States moves to take over Mindanao, both the Americans and the Moros invoke the name of the Ottoman Empire—seat of the Caliph—to support their campaigns. But in 1914, an actual Ottoman emissary arrives in Zamboanga. How will the American occupiers react to his visit?

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References:

Dwight, H.D. (1915). Constantinople: Old and New. Charles Scribner’s Sons.

Inanc, Yusuf Selman. “Abdulhamid II: An autocrat, reformer and the last stand of the Ottoman Empire.” Middle East Eye. https://www.middleeasteye.net/discover/abdulhamid-ii-last-stand-ottoman-empire

Göksoy, Ismail Hakki (2024). “The Ottomans’ Shaykh Al-Islam of Philippines, Mehmet Vecih Efendi: His Life, Duties and Activities.” In Göksoy, Kadi (eds.), Studies on the Relations Between the Ottoman Empire and Southeast Asia, YTB Publications.

Charbonneau, Oliver (2021). Civilizational Imperatives: Americans, Moros, and the Colonial World. Ateneo de Manila University Press.

Amirell, Stefan Eklöf (25 August 2022). “‘An Extremely Mild Form of Slavery … of the Worst Sort’: American Perceptions of Slavery in the Sulu Sultanate, 1899–1904,” Slavery & Abolition, 43(3), pp. 517-532.

Vatin, Nicolas (19 December 2017). “The Death of Ottoman Sultans.” Politika. https://www.politika.io/en/notice/the-death-of-ottoman-sultans

In the last decades of Spanish rule in the Philippines, pianos—both foreign and local—provided the tinkling music of the colony’s rising middle class. (Listen to S7E1 before this one.)

Lousy pilots? Fierce storms? Rampaging currents? Some of these galleons never stood a chance. (Listen to S6E13 before this one.)

The route of a Spanish galleon from Manila to Acapulco was littered with the wrecks of ships that sailed before—hit by storms, hammered by tides, preyed on by pirates. Meanwhile, on the filthy decks, hunger and disease stalked the ranks of the sailors, slaves, and passengers. Spanning thousands of kilometers, every voyage of the Galleon Trade was grueling and lethal… but for the investors who bet fortunes on the trade ships, the payoff was worth every dead body.

In this episode, let’s sail aboard a galleon as it makes its way from Manila to Mexico. Will we make it to the end alive?

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References:

Casabán, José Luis (2014). “The Reconstruction of a Seventeenth-Century Spanish Galleon.” 2014 Underwater Archaeology Proceedings.

Legarda, Benito J. (1999). After the Galleons: Foreign Trade, Economic Change and Entrepreneurship in the Nineteenth-Century Philippines. Ateneo de Manila Press.

Seijas, Tatiana (2014). Asian Slaves in Colonial Mexico: From Chinos to Indians. Cambridge University Press.

Isorena, Efren B. (2015). “Maritime Disasters in Spanish Philippines: The Manila-Acapulco Galleons, 1565-1815.” International Journal of Asia Pacific Studies, 11(1), pp. 53-83.

Schurz, William Lyle (July 1918). “Acapulco and the Manila Galleon.” The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, 22(1), pp. 18-37.

Hayes, Lieutenant John D. (December 1934). “The Manila Galleons.” Proceedings of the US Naval Institute, 60(12).

Worrall, Simon (15 January 2017). “A Nightmare Disease Haunted Ships During Age of Discovery.” National Geographic. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/scurvy-disease-discovery-jonathan-lamb

Morris, David Z. (17 May 2016). “Cruel ships of prosperity.” Aeon. https://aeon.co/essays/the-manila-galleons-that-oceaneered-for-plague-and-profit

Costumes, backdrops, dedications—in the 1900s, having your photo taken in a studio and sending prints to loved ones was the hot new thing in the Philippines! (Listen to S6E12 before this one.)