SUMMARY
Coffee (Coffea sp.) is an important commercial crop worldwide. Three species of coffee are used as beverage, namely Coffea arabica, C. canephora, and C. liberica. Coffea arabica L. is the most cultivated among the three coffee species due to its taste quality, rich aroma, and low caffeine content. Despite its inferior taste and aroma, C. canephora Pierre ex A. Froehner, which has the highest caffeine content, is the second most widely cultivated because of its resistance to coffee diseases. On the other hand, C. liberica W.Bull ex Hierncomes is characterized by its very strong taste and flavor. The Philippines used to be a leading exporter of coffee until coffee rust destroyed the farms in Batangas, home of the famous Kapeng Barako. The country has been attempting to revive the coffee industry by focusing on the production of specialty coffee with registered varieties on the National Seed Industry Council (NSIC). Correct identification and isolation of pure coffee beans are the main factors that determine coffee’s market value. Local farms usually misidentify and mix coffee beans of different varieties, leading to the depreciation of their value. This study used simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers to evaluate and distinguish Philippine NSIC-registered coffee species and varieties. The neighbor-joining tree generated using PAUP showed high bootstrap support, separating C. arabica, C. canephora, and C. liberica from each other. Among the twenty primer pairs used, seven were able to distinguish C. arabica, nine for C. liberica, and one for C. canephora.Keywords: Coffea, NSIC-registered varieties, SSR