m a n i l a g i r l

DRINKING CRUSHED TEA LEAVES


I had wanted to write about my comfort foods and there were many to choose from: ChowKing goto congee and fried wanton balls, Wendy’s bacon cheeseburger and iced tea, Mang Roger’s "taho" (a soy drink) and Ate Fe’s "banana-Q" (fried banana with caramelized brown sugar), or home-cooked "sinigang" (sour brew of steamed shrimp and grean leafy veggies), "pinakbet" (a predominantly squash, string bean, eggplant, okra and meat stew) and "tapsilog" (breakfast fare of beef jerky, fried rice and egg). Some of these have become fixtures in our Filipino "hapag-kainan" (dining table), that we would be lost if we didn’t have even a measly taste of it for an entire week. These are comfort foods with an entire history behind them. Instead of these, though, I end up writing about drinking crushed tea leaves.

On any regular afternoon at the college cafeteria of Ateneo de Manila’s Loyola Campus, the beverage choices are always easy: the eternal iced tea, fruit shakes and juices, soda drinks, coffee and coffee-based blended drinks, "sago at gulaman" (tapioca balls and gelatin in a sweetened concoction) and even taho. I wasn’t in the mood for any of those staples that afternoon so I made my way to the John Gokongwei School of Management (JGSoM), the newest building complex erected right beside the football field. I scoured the "JGSMall” for a particular joint… and there it was in a corner at the end of the strip and right next to the parking lot: Matcha Green Tea Café. (I cannot explain it, but I have an affinity for many green foods and drinks: salad greens, basil pesto, buko pandan, suman, green mango shake…Now it seemed Matcha Green Tea was going to be part of the list, just by virtue of its hue!) Matcha Green Tea’s quaint al fresco café was surrounded by black steel “garden-set” tables that were all taken by college twosomes talking intimately, trios studying quietly and whole "barkadas" (cliques) chatting boisterously. A tall banner at the left side of the cafe greets you with snapshots of their array of hot and cold green tea beverages, plus the names and the prices of the different varieties. The only female barista with the nametag Anne welcomes me with me an engaging smile and questions what drink it’ll be for me that sunny afternoon. She rings up my order for a Matcha Mango Frappe, putters around with the blender and a plastic cup while asking me about my classes. “Do you always have this many people here in the cafe?”, I ask her in turn, looking around the filled tables. “Wala pa ‘to, petiks pa nga ‘to…Sunod-sunod sila pag 10 a.m., pagka-break time (This is nothing, this is even slower than what we're used to…they come in droves here at 10 a.m. during their breaks)," she reveals with a bit of an incredulous tone. Hmmmm…Anne seems to have had a hand in keeping the customers coming, too, with her friendly chatter.

To parlay green tea (an ingredient commonly known as a bitter tea) as the star ingredient for a wide array of drinks is no small endeavor. In the first place, it’s not as versatile or exciting as chocolate, nor as acceptable to the taste buds as sodas and fruit drinks. I first had my taste of a green tea blended drink in Starbucks but their concoction was too creamy I almost couldn’t “find” the green tea taste in it. But I stroll leisurely around the campus sipping my Matcha Mango Frappe – to the end of JGSoM Building, through the parking lot behind the college cafeteria, past the Immaculate Conception Chapel and the Quadrangle, to the library and back to Gonzaga Hall for my Nonfiction Writing class – and I realize THIS drink is totally different.

My Matcha Mango Frappe is a “neither-here-nor-there” drink: neither too sweet (like regular fruit juices would be), neither too creamy (as other blended frappes are bound to be) nor too bitter (as regular green teas taste like). The drink itself is an opaque, avocado-green with a dollop of whipped cream that ends in a five-petalled star on top. When I sip it with my “flexi-straw”, the frappe goes down my throat smoothly all the while intriguing my other senses. I recognize a hint of tartness coming from the juiciness of fat, ripe yellow mangoes. Surely the meager drizzle of mango syrup on top of the whipped cream can’t evoke that much flavor! How they blend the flavors into their drinks will be Matcha Green Tea Cafe’s industry secret…but I make a mental note to ask Anne about it anyway the next time I drop by. The mango flavor in my green tea frappe reminds me so much of what’s native or ethnic in the Philippines: summers spent with slices and slices of ripe golden mangoes eaten after a heavy meal or for "merienda" (snack time) to just cool off. Then I taste the heart of the drink’s blend, the green tea that the shop owners say come from finely powdered matcha (or maccha) green tea leaves. It must be weird for other people to know that some individuals actually do like the sensation and taste of crushed green tea leaves. I like the drink because the natural, organic flavor of the tea registers at the sides of my mouth, the floor of my tongue, in my stomach and then my brain as good, healthy and…strangely satisfying. It stimulates my memory and comforts my soul: I am reconnecting with tea drinkers of all ages and ethnicity all over the globe, whether they be the ancient Chinese who first developed a tea-drinking culture, the Japanese who imported and kept alive the tradition of making dried, stone-ground, powdered green tea (matcha) for their highly ritualistic tea ceremonies, the North Americans who got a whiff of the benefits of green tea and added this to their lattes and other drinks, to today’s adaptive and enterprising Pinoys who discovered something really good and different that they just HAD to share with other Pinoys (this little "enterprise" was actually started by a Business Management major in the college). Lastly, the whipped cream in my Matcha Mango Frappe…It reminds me of the “now” culture in the Philippines: commercial empires built entirely on coffee beans and tea bags, Starbucks and Seattle’s Best Cafes littered in cities across the country, mushrooming beverage fads like Zagu and Quickly, and a café culture that has become part of Philippine society precisely because it gives space to think, to catch up with old friends, to write down on paper (or electronically with a laptop PC) one’s thoughts with abandon and time to simply BE by paying attention to the passing world. I realize I am participating in that growing Pinoy culture by drinking my Matcha Mango Frappe and patronizing cafes like Matcha Green Tea.

Truly, Matcha Green Tea is a whole world of flavors as exotic as its original ingredient – the matcha tea leaves. What sets apart my Matcha Mango Frappe and this tiny-college-café-that-could is that drinking their crushed green tea leaves is never boring. Matcha Green Tea Cafe may never become as popular as Starbucks, but as long as each sip of their matcha beverages continues to provide a world of experience to its drinkers, it will always be something one can turn to after one has had her fill of the eternal, undying Pinoy comfort foods.

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Matcha Green Tea Cafe at the Ateneo is open weekdays until 6 P.M. and until 2 P.M. Saturdays. Another Matcha Cafe was recently opened at Pearl Drive in Ortigas. Watch out for other branches soon in your Philippine locale.