tea – Jellybeans in the City

Brunching among friends: A fun get-together at The Fat Seed Cafe + Roastery

One Saturday morning, I had the pleasure of meeting up with my former officemates at The Fat Seed Cafe + Roastery in Bonifacio Global City. Here, we gathered around the big central table, reminiscing about our days working together and catching up on the new goings-on in our lives, and soaked up the relaxing atmosphere of the cafe.

A Modern Industrial Haven

The Fat Seed Cafe + Roastery boasts of a modern and industrial concept that exudes urban charm. With painted brick walls, concrete floors, and stylish modern lighting, the cafe’s design sets the stage for a trendy and inviting dining experience. Large glass windows allow natural light to flood in, creating a warm and welcoming atmosphere that instantly puts you at ease.

Friendly Vibes and Attentive Service

One of the standout aspects of our brunch experience was the friendly and attentive staff at The Fat Seed Cafe + Roastery. From the time I called the branch to reserve our table to the time we arrived and dined there, the staff made us feel right at home. They ensured that our orders were taken and served promptly with a smile. With such efficient service, we were able to savor our brunch without any unnecessary delays.

A Delectable Brunch Spread

The Fat Seed Cafe + Roastery’. Their’s menu includes a delightful selection of breakfast, lunch, and dinner options, ensuring that there’s something for everyone’s taste buds. Here are some of the standout dishes that made our brunch truly unforgettable:

Breakfast Steak Skillet. A juicy ribeye steak, perfectly paired with garlic confit, garlic rice, a grilled tomato, and a fried egg.

SS Poppers. Crispy beer-battered deep-fried shrimp and squid, and served with a zesty lemon wedge and tangy aioli dip.

Avocado Toast. The classic combination of mashed avocado, poached eggs, and a sprinkle of spices on thick-cut sourdough bread and topped with arugula and feta cheese.

Tartufo Pasta. Fettuccini tossed in truffle cream, porcini mushrooms, prosciutto, and Parmesan cheese.

Soy Honey Seared Tuna. A light and refreshing option made with herb-crusted tuna seared to perfection, glazed with a sesame sriracha sauce and topped with arugula and cherry tomatoes.

Kale-Crusted Salmon. A healthy and flavorful dish featuring oven-roasted salmon crusted with kale pesto, and served on a bed of quinoa and salted French beans.

TFS Signature Pork Chop. A juicy and tender bone-in pork chop cooked sous vide and served with a delectable herbed butter and rice.

Wagyu Pares. Up-leveled Pinoy dish made with succulent wagyu beef braised in sweet soy sauce and spices and served with fried rice and beef broth on stackable steel containers, a nostalgic nod to our grade school lunch boxes.

Coffee and Refreshing Beverages

No brunch is complete without a satisfying cup of coffee or a refreshing beverage. At The Fat Seed Cafe + Roastery, you can choose from a range of options to quench your thirst and satisfy your caffeine cravings. Some noteworthy choices include:

The morning spent with my former coworkers at The Fat Seed Cafe + Roastery was a joyful experience filled with laughter, good food, and heartwarming memories. The cafe’s modern industrial ambiance, friendly service, and delectable menu options make it an ideal venue for brunch and get-togethers with friends. So, if you’re a foodie on the hunt for a fantastic brunch spot, make sure to add The Fat Seed Cafe + Roastery to your list. Head over, relax, indulge, and create new memories over a delightful brunch that will leave you longing for more.

This branch of The Fat Seed Cafe + Roastery is located at the Ground Floor, One Meridien Tower, 9th Avenue corner 27th Street, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig, open daily from 10am to 8.30pm.

Other branches are located at:

2/F Greenbelt 3, Esperanza Street, Ayala Center, Makati
Ground Floor, Phase 2, UP Town Center, Katipunan Avenue, Diliman, Quezon City

Check out my previous posts about The Fat Seed Cafe:

Nourishing the seeds of friendship at The Fat Seed Cafe + Roastery, UP Town Center

The Tita’s Guide to Brunchin’ at The Fat Seed Cafe + Roastery, UP Town Center

Get “Berry Much in Love” with these newly relaunched strawberry drinks from Moonleaf Tea Shop

Who can resist strawberries?

That vibrant red color, the rich plumpness of the fruit, the heady beckoning fragrance and the burst of fruity sweetness as you bite into it with just a bit of tanginess to make it all the more intriguing to the palate. Any encounter with this fruit is a sensual delight.

It’s hardly surprising, then, that this fruit becomes so prevalent around Valentine’s Day.

Moonleaf Tea Shop brings strawberry lovers fresh ways to enjoy their favorite fruit with the relaunch of its strawberry line of drinks under its Berry Much in Love category.

These drinks pair the fruity sweetness of strawberry with Moonleaf’s house-brewed black or green tea, creamy milk, and chewy coconut nata. This line includes:

Strawberry Milk Tea with Nata (Php120).

Strawberry Black Tea with Nata (Php100).

Strawberry Yakult with Nata (Php120).

Strawberry Milk Slush with Nata (Php160).

Since these drinks are best enjoyed when shared with our special someone, Moonleaf makes this drinks available on special deals which give great savings:

2 Strawberry Milk Tea with Nata for Php199 (save Php41)
2 Strawberry Black Tea with Nata for Php179 (save Php21)
2 Strawberry Yakult with Nata for Php189 (save Php51)
2 Strawberry Milk Slush with Nata for Php249 (save Php71)

Enjoy these deals until March 31, 2021.

Can’t wait to get “Berry Much in Love” with these drinks? Grab yours now by dropping by your nearest Moonleaf Tea Shop branch or ordering from GrabFood, FoodPanda, Shopee and Lazada.

Disclosure: Product samples were provided to facilitate this feature article.

Photo credit: Massimiliano Martini on Unsplash for the strawberry photo

Rediscovering tea at The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, BGC

With the onset of the rainy season, don’t you sometimes feel the need to just snuggle up somewhere with a nice, hot cup of tea?

Well, why not?

For centuries, tea has long been known to give comfort to its drinkers, with stimulating mental alertness, increasing resistance to disease, cleansing and reinvigorating skin, assisting in proper digestion and easing joint and muscle discomfort.

But did you know that there is a proper way to enjoy your cup of tea?

Together with my friends from #WeLoveToEatPH, I discovered that there’s more to tea than meets the eye at The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf’s recent #DiscoverTea event held at the 26th Street Bistro in Bonifacio Global City.

One of these discoveries is the process of tea cupping, which involves using multiple senses to appreciate and evaluate tea.

Here’s how:

With your sense of sight, visually examine the dry and unfurled tea leaves. Whole leaves with good color indicate tea of good quality.

With your sense of smell, take in the aroma of tea and try to distinguish the unique smell of each variant from the others.

With your sense of taste and touch, take in the flavor and mouthfeel of the brew as you slurp it using a stainless steel spoon.

Many things enter into the equation when it comes to enjoying a perfect cup of tea. Those that are stored in airtight containers and placed in a cool, dry and dark place will be able to keep their potency of flavor much longer. Those made of full and loose tea leaves would provide the finest taste, especially when steeped in freshly boiled water, and in the right proportion (8oz of hot water per 1 tsp of tea: or 12-16oz of hot water per tea bag).

Steeping time also plays an important role in producing your perfect cup. Steep it too briefly and you won’t maximize the tea’s flavor; steep it for too long and you scald the leaves, giving the tea a bitter taste.

Green teas require the shortest steeping time at 3 minutes, while black and oolong teas require a bit longer steeping time at 5 minutes. Herbal and fruit infusion teas require the longest at 7 minutes.

Also, be sure to pour the hot water over the tea, instead of dropping the tea bad into the hot water.

The #DiscoverTea event also served as the launch of CBTL’s new tea flavors which we enjoyed with some of the cafe’s pastry offerings.

Food-and-tea pairing is designed to enhance the flavor of the tea and the pastry by finding similar or complementary elements in both, as in the case of:

African Sunrise x Banana Chocolate Muffin. CBTL’s hand-crafted honeybush with a mild and sweet taste, and aromatic vanilla flavoring brought out the light sweetness of the cafe’s chocolate chip-laden classic banana muffin.

Genmaicha x Spicy Tuna Pandesal. The roasted flavor of from the Sencha tea and rice blend complemented the spicy tuna inside the hot pan de sal.

Apricot Ceylon x Blueberry Cheesecake. Definitely my favorite pairing, the light and fruity Ceylon tea is a great foil to the rich blueberry-topped cheesecake.

Pomegranate Blueberry x White Chocolate Berry Cheesecake. The bright and fresh yet exotic tea brought out the richness of the decadent blueberry-filled white chocolate cheesecake.

After our tea pairing experience, our team went on a new foodie adventure: blending our own tea! We mixed Black Ceylon tea leaves with dried mango bits, pieces of orange peel and rose petals. After steeping in hot water, the resulting drink is fragrant and light, with a slight citrusy flavor. Who knew we could be tea masters for a day, eh?

The #DiscoverTea event showed us that there are a million ways to enjoy a classic.

Thanks to Harvard of AlwaysHungry.ph for extending the invitation and to the folks of The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf for the awesome tea rediscovery experience!

This Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf branch (26th Street Bistro) is located at Net Lima Building, 26th Street, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig. Other CBTL branches in Taguig may be found at:

Ground Floor, Venice Piazza, McKinley Hill, Taguig
B8 Bonifacio High Street, BGC
32nd Street corner 11th Avenue, Park Triangle, BGC
Third Floor, BHS Central Square, BGC
Third Floor, Uptown Place Mall, BGC
Every Nation Building, 32nd Avenue corner University Parkway, BGC
Ground Floor, BGC Stopover Pavilion, BGC
Burgos Circle, BGC
Fifth Floor, SM Aura Premier, BGC
Shell Logcom, CP Garcia Avenue, Greater Taguig
Ground Floor, Vista Mall, Greater Taguig

Disclosure: Together with fellow foodies, I attended a tea tasting and pairing event held at 26th Street Bistro. Food and drink mentioned here we served as part of the program and were not paid for by the attendees, including myself.

Check out my other posts on The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf:

Breakfast Takeout at 85C Bakery Cafe, Lynnwood

Yesterday, the second day of our family in the Evergreen State, my brother took us to his favorite pastry shop, 85C Bakery Cafe.

85C got its name from its belief that coffee holds its flavor best at a steady temperature of 85 degrees Celsius. Its name is a statement of the cafe’s commitment to serving handcrafted coffee of the highest quality.

Each 85C store has its own in-shop bakery with a wide variety of pastries baked fresh every hour.

These pastries were the reason for our visit yesterday afternoon: the plan was to buy some of the store’s freshly baked goods for our breakfast the next day. Our loot included:

Milk Toast (USD3.00). A loaf with a fresh and natural milk taste.

Taro Puff Pastry (USD2.50). This puff pastry is light, flaky, and layered with delicious taro filling inside.

Milk Pudding (USD2.00). A traditional Japanese style soft bread with vanilla custard inside.

Garlic Cheese (USD2.00). A soft textured bread topped with our signature garlic spread, mozzarella cheese, and sprinkled with fresh parsley.

Cheese Dog (USD2.20). Soft bread wrapped around a hot dog, with cheddar & mozzarella cheese. Baked with ketchup, light mayo, black pepper and dry parsley.

Marble Taro (USD3.00). A sweet bread made with mixed grains and filled with signature taro filling.

This morning, I had the Milk Pudding and Taro Puff Pastry for my meal while I was enjoying the crisp morning air.