Would You Drink This? Filipino Moonshine From Trees!

Pea hikes deep into the mountains of Valencia to personally climb a coconut tree and harvest tuba, a traditional Filipino alcoholic drink made from coconut sap that's wildly popular in the Visayas and Mindanao. She demonstrates the entire collection process from dangerous tree-top to finished product, interviews the tree owner, and stops at a roadside tuba seller on the way home.

The hike to the coconut tree ​

• Pea treks up a mountainside in the rain with no clear pathway — the terrain is treacherous, wet, and rocky
• Along the way she spots and points out several plants:
  • Wild white, orange, and purple flowers she can't identify (she names the white ones "white flower" since they have no scent)
  • The makahiya plant (the "shy plant") — when you touch it, the leaves close up; she compares it to Filipinas saying "I'm so shy" and plays it like a piano, but warns it has thorns
  • A wild cacao tree — she explains Filipinos dry and grind the seeds to make hot cocoa (sweetened, because "we love it sweet"), use it for baking, dark chocolate, and even facial scrub
  • A plant with purple flowers and dark berries she ate as a child — looks like wild mulberries or blackcurrants, sweet, and turns your tongue purple
• She passes a river running through the valley and describes the view as breathtaking

Climbing the coconut tree to harvest tuba ​

• Pea acknowledges she promised two years ago she'd never climb coconut trees again, but this one is shorter than the previous one (though it's sitting on a mountainside, so a fall could still be dangerous)
• The tree has hand-carved notches cut into the trunk that the regular harvesters use as footholds for climbing up and down
• Her gear: a coconut tube (container for collecting the sap), a knife/sickle for cutting, and a GoPro for the aerial view
• At the top, she finds bees and nervously asks them not to sting her
• The harvesting process: collect the accumulated sap from the coconut bud into the tube container, then cut a tiny sliver off the bud so it continues producing fresh sap — she emphasizes cutting only a tiny amount
• She collects from two buds, fills her container, and the descent is difficult because the full container is heavy
• She describes the experience as intense and says she doesn't need mountain climbing as a hobby

Tuba production and alcohol content ​

• Freshly harvested tuba is milky white in color, smells fruity, and tastes sweet
• It's already 8-proof (4% ABV) straight from the tree — enough to get you drunk if you drink a lot
• Unfermented tuba can be drunk as-is
• Fermented for 6 months to 5 years, it can reach 25-proof or stronger
• Some producers add mangrove bark (called "barok" in Leyte, "tungog" in Negros) which turns the tuba reddish and helps the fermentation process
• In Luzon, they distill tuba into lambanog, which reaches around 40-proof — Pea explicitly warns against trying it, calling it a "health hazard" and noting that people have died from drinking it

Meeting Tatay, the tree owner ​

• Tatay is the man who owns the coconut tree and is the professional harvester
• He's lived on this remote mountainside for 30 years with his family
• He climbs 5 coconut trees daily for tuba production
• He has a regular customer he delivers to
• Price: 80 pesos per gallon (~$1.50 USD) regardless of whether it's fresh, fermented, or turned into coconut vinegar
• He grades Pea's harvesting: "100 out of 100"
• They toast together — Pea notes tuba is considered good for health due to probiotics

Roadside tuba seller on the way home ​

• Sells tuba, suka (vinegar), and some food items including unusual yellow-brown cucumbers
• The tuba for sale is reddish (because they use tungog/barok for fermentation), alongside milky-white freshly harvested tuba
• Also priced at 80 pesos per gallon — Pea calls it "a bang for your buck"
• They sell about 6 gallons per day, setting up early in the morning
• Pea asks what happens if a child comes to buy — they'll sell to kids because everyone knows everyone in the community and it's the parents who'll be drinking it, not the child
• No license or permit is required to sell tuba — there's minimal bureaucracy around homemade alcoholic drinks in the Philippines
• Same goes for moonshine/lambanog in Luzon

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