Coffee rarely fails to draw a crowd, and here in Davao City, that gathering has grown by leaps and bounds.
The launch of the 5th Davao Coffee Crawl last Thursday at Poblacion Market Central demonstrated just how deeply local coffee enthusiasts and practitioners have bonded into a robust coffee ecology and thriving creative industry.
At the helm of this year’s crawl is journalist-turned-coffee-preneur RJ Lumawag. We are pleased to share his message to the community in full below.
“On September 27, 2021, a group of young entrepreneurs were having coffee at Onse when one of them asked, “What should we do for International Coffee Day on October 1?”
The usual coffee-related promos were thrown around, until the sisters of Lara Mia pitched the idea of a coffee crawl among the group of cafe owners.
That day, Lara Mia Cafe and Bistro, Spark Coffee, Onse, Mugshots, Confex, and Espresso Lab began planning for the first edition of the Davao Coffee Crawl. Oye Coffee, The Bloom, and Lifecycle Coffee were later invited to complete the nine participating coffee shops.
Over the next three days, the mechanics and crawl cards were quickly put together. Around 150 cards were prepared.
The purpose of the crawl was simple: to help bring traffic to these coffee shops, which were still reeling from the effects of the pandemic. It was also organized to give Dabawenyos something to do at a time when travel was still limited.
Expectations were low. We were worried that only a few people would join.
Then October 1 came.
Within 24 hours, the crawl cards were almost running out. Crawlers were visiting one cafe after another in the hopes of getting a card.
The response was overwhelming, to say the least. It was the first event of its kind in Davao City.
Now on its fifth year, the Davao Coffee Crawl continues to carry its primary purpose: to be a community-led event that helps build up the local coffee scene.
From 2021 to the present, the Davao Coffee Crawl has featured more than 50 coffee shops, each with its own distinct personality.
Over the years, the Davao Coffee Crawl has also evolved beyond simply building up the coffee scene. It has become an avenue to highlight why Davao’s coffee scene is as vibrant as it is.
It has also allowed crawlers to gain a better appreciation of coffee. Coffee is not simply something you drink to stay awake. It has different personalities and character, which each participating coffee shop tries to bring out every time you visit.
This year, we want you to celebrate Davao City’s coffee scene. We want you to take pride in it.
We want Davao to be known not only for durian and chocolates, but also for a good cup of coffee.
One thing we’re doing differently this year is moving away from the usual crawl card and using postcards instead. You can think of it as traveling from one place to another, with each postcard representing a different experience.
We also want to put more emphasis on the experience rather than turning the Coffee Crawl into an Amazing Race.
We have limited the number of coffee shops you can visit in a day to allow you to spend more time in each cafe, get to know them, and experience what they have to offer.
And while we have our limited 5th Anniversary Box, no crawler will end the Coffee Crawl without a prize. The moment you get your postcards, you will also receive a special coupon postcard—one of our official prizes this year.
This means you don’t have to rush through the month-long coffee crawl. The coupon postcard contains freebies and discounts from all participating cafes that you can claim after the Coffee Crawl.
I would like to thank our participating cafes. We cannot thank you enough for the support you have extended to the Coffee Crawl.
And lastly, to our crawlers.
This year, we recorded the highest number of pre-orders in the history of the Davao Coffee Crawl. More than 300 crawlers are expected to participate in this month-long event. The support has been extremely overwhelming and has exceeded our initial expectation of around 200 crawlers.
Davao Coffee Crawl 2026 is set to be one lively crawl.
We hope you discover new coffee shops to support, while our participating cafes gain new connections and new opportunities to share their stories—and, of course, their coffee.
Happy Crawling!”
