Kuppa's House Blend

"Surprise me,"I challenged my friend Marco when he asked where I wanted to meet up for coffee.  We were supposed to meet for lunch, but the traffic that day was so horrible, I finally got to The Fort in Taguig over three hours after the time we initially set our 'lunch date'. So coffee it was and the venue, up to the hungrier person - me. 

Yes, I was surprised, and absolutely pleasantly so. The place was Kuppa Roastery and Cafe at the ground floor of CommerceCenterBuilding, 31st St. cr. 4th Avenue, Fort Bonifacio Global City,Taguig.

From outside, the place looked so hip and inviting, yet it was surprisingly peaceful inside. 

In case you can't get a menu, just read from their glass windows, black boards around
the counter, and on the table top standees.

From their facebook page: 

Kuppa (pronounced, cup-pa) started from a family that knows coffee. It took 50 years to make their first cup of coffee, starting with their grandfather after the first World War, who passed the roasting trade down to their father, who passed it on to his children.

Kuppa Coffee first opened its doors to the public in Bacolod on January 2006 by Eugene and Karen Lo-Tsai. The first coffee shop was built on the same lot where the Lo family started roasting coffee in the 1950s. Kuppa was the first coffee shop to introduce in-house coffee roasting in the Philippines, to ensure superior tasting coffee. 

Their menu covers items from breakfast through happy hour, to dinner, and of course, desserts. Having already missed lunch and barely survived about 5 hours total in the car, I had to have something to make me feel better. I narrowed my choices down to sandwich or pasta. Pasta or sandwich? 

Don't ask me what it was because I can't remember exactly. It was a four-cheese penne dish.
Ask me how it was. That I can tell you.

Pasta won. Delish! Then I had to give the place the test. Coffee!

Since the entire place began with a love for coffee, Kuppa, of course, has a list of coffee variants, blends, and twists. I chose to try their basic brew - their house blend. What kind of coffee's in it? The server said it was their secret. So I waited, intrigued, till it was served.  It came in a coffee press.

Color looked wonderful. Smelled heavenly. Yup, those are a couple of coffee grounds that escaped the coffee press' filter, but it didn't matter because it was a perfect panacea for my frayed nerves from my long and slow crawl through that day's traffic.

With a packet of cream I usually take my basic brew with - just perfect. You can tell by the color. No grey tint and not still mud brown. Strange as it may sound, that's one almost-sure indicator of a great cup of coffee for me.

I was so happy with my time spent there catching up with my good friend who knew the perfect way to perk up my mood, and I was delightfully full. I didn't have any room for dessert, but walking out, the pretty strawberry muffins got my attention, so I just needed to take a couple home. (They were heavenly!)

"Kuppa serves coffee as it should be: sweet, smooth and complex. The cupping of each blend and single origin coffee is done on a daily basis to ensure the quality and the freshness of the coffee are maintained.  Kuppa strives to have each visit a fresh new discovery."

If that's a promise, and with my first experience there as basis, I'm definitely going back.