Wednesday, May 14, 2008 Which brew ... coffee or tea? By Nelia G. Neri
OVER steaming brews, be it coffee or tea, business deals are done, current news dissected, and countless stories told, retold and untold.
Yes, it is the coffee/tea shop culture making headway — powwows and tete-a-tetes are now held over a cuppa.
These places have become “The Venue” for all kinds of socializing. Comes now the relatively new player in Cebu, The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf which has an outlet at SM City and another one at IT Park.
Aside from serving excellent coffees (in all its forms), The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf shops offer the finest tea in town (steaming, chilled or frozen) with the widest variety of blends and infusions.
While coffee is known as the Pinoy’s preferred caffeine fix, and tea, the favorite of the Chinese and the British, the latter is steadily getting its share of Pinoy followers. The good news is that The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf gives as much importance to tea as it does to coffee. In fact, the company continues to cultivate “tea knowledge” through Tea Appreciation seminars and workshops. According to the company’s marketing director Paolo del Rosario, “The Tea Appreciation seminar is our way of introducing Filipinos to the range of flavors that they can have with tea.”
Some weeks back we attended one such seminar at The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf outlet at the Paseo Center in Makati upon the invitation of Allen Tan, the managing partner of the Cebu branches of The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf.
Holding court was tea connoisseur and master tea blender David DeCandia who detailed the process of coming out with an excellent tea. It starts as far back as the way the tea is grown and cultivated, harvested and stored, oxidized and blended, and finally brewed and served. Oh yes, a perfect cup of tea doesn’t materialize by chance.
The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf at SM City and at the IT Park are considered the “in” places to see and be seen by discriminating coffee and tea enthusiasts. Nowhere else can one get the freshest and most flavorful of tea blends (my fave is chai with its cardamon, clove and cinnamon flavor) and those aromatic teas with herbal and fruit infusions — not to mention the yummy dessert concoctions of Bunny Ludo, the city’s first convert to The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf way of life!
Regular habitues are the morning joggers, the coffee-break groupies, the after-lunch caffeine addicts, the mid-to-late afternoon brew buffs and the after-dinner crowd.
What better way to recharge, unwind, or talk shop than over a cup of steaming hot cuppa? Coffee or tea?
