With Zen Tea, Guiltea, and Bon Appetea in Baguio; Let’s have a Tea Off!

Tea based beverages have come a long way.  These days, they’re available in every kind of flavor you can think of, and artificial as though these flavors from a bottle may seem, they’re a hit with today’s crowd.  Tea drinks; hot or cold, fruity or with milk and their tapioca pearls lining up in the straw to get to your mouth, have become the refreshment of choice for both the young and the old in Baguio City.

Having a tea moment with hot green tea with lavender

Zen Tea

Opening at the most opportune time, just when summer was coming around the corner and during the Panagbenga Festival, Zen Tea became the spot for getting one’s cool back after walking up and down the road enjoying Session Road in Bloom.

This is what Zen looks like… =)

Found in the center of town, this tea place caters to every type of market; little kids, people coming from work, college kids, just about everyone.  (You do have to work a little bit with finding their store for the first time.  Race and I went everywhere in Porta Vaga and it was hidden behind the organic vegetable store beside the parking lot.)  The establishment is also a great place to hang out at, especially in the morning when you’ve got the place to yourself. =b

ZenTea(s) *harhar

❤ ZenTea lovers ❤

With a good enough number of drinks to offer, I got it into my head to try every drink they had before I would start to mix and match my own stuff.  (They’ve got flavored green iced teas and special mixes of teas that you can pair up with crème tea or the yogo tea creations.)  Though really now, my favorite is the tea creation, Autumn – a wintermelon milk tea (the first Zen Tea tea I tried).  (“,)

Autumn – my favorite and Naicha (“,)

My ZenTea Checklist ^^, = COMPLETE!

Drinks:  

Service: 

Ambiance: 

Price: 

ZenTea

Porta Vaga, Session Road

Baguio City, Philippines

Guiltea Pleasures

I heard about this place from foodspotting.com.  I was mainly looking for their cocoa with rocksalt and cheese tea mix but then, when Race and I went (back) to Pizza Volante (more on that restaurant in the future (“,)) and their ‘branch’ at Kumon, they didn’t have it.  I got their All that Jazz – jasmine milk tea and Race got their royal mik tea-dark – wintermelon flavored.  These were good enough drinks but ZenTea’s wintermelon milk tea is still the reigning tea for me. \m/

The lil’ Guiltea menu =b, royal milk tea-dark and all that jazz tea

At my Guiltea (Kumon) visit, I chose to get the kumquat tea.

Having kumquat tea. Whoo-hoo *sour …yes, that’s all my mukhasim/sour face is. You could say, I’m a professional sour food eater. Think the greenest mangoes. ^^,

Drinks:  Mainly for their milk teas.

Service:  Plus, my  for the attendant at the Diego Silang branch who made my drink – she put in a ton of pearls.  Every sip had soooooo many pearls, weee!  Thank you so much!

Ambiance:   Guiltea doesn’t really have its own store and they’re riding on the Pizza Volante ambiance for their Session Road branch.  As for the one at Kumon (Diego Silang Street), it’s too cumbersome to place your order here.  You have to go through the Kumon doors (join the fray of students being dropped off or picked up by their parents), take your shoes off, and go up the stairs to order and get your tea drink.  =D

Price:  They only have small sizes for their drinks.  Buying two of their best teas brings you up to P120 which is much more expensive than ZenTea’s or Bon Appetea’s.

Guiltea Pleasures

Pizza Volante, Session Road

Kumon, Diego Silang Street

Baguio City, Philippines

Bon Appetea

This is one of the first stores that opened in the new building on Assumption Road.  Follow their signs well so you don’t get lost in the maze of the building that is ECCO. =b  They have a wide range of beverages to offer (which can make choosing a bit difficult.  *shyeew.  Luckily, the floor space at Bon Appetea is large enough to accommodate everyone looking up at the menu *heeharhar)

Best Seller List …and a promo of free pearl (What? No S? Just one pearl then? *snicker snicker)

Bon Appetea menu.  Bon Appetea Best Sellers: Lemon Yakult, Karamel Sutra with Salt and Cheese Foam, and Nirvana *weh and Bon Appetea ‘sinkers’

The Bon Appetea scene.  Matcha Green Tea? Really? Or is it seaweed tea? *bleh …and the blueberry CREAM-block =))

Drinks:  So many choices and so far, we didn’t get anything good.  The matcha green tea tasted more like seaweed (kim – like what’s used to wrap kimbap, you guys know I love Korean food, I even snack on plain kim but liquidized kim? super *eeww) and for their so called best sellers, the only thing that comes to my mind is what John Mason said to Stanley Goodspeed in The Rock. You know how it went: Your bessht? …. ^^,

Service: 

Ambiance:  Particularly when construction in the building is all finished and the paint fumes and dust is gone. =b

Price:  With all their drinks, the pearls (pudding, jelly, etc.) don’t come with it.  You’d have to pay extra for these ‘sinkers’ (unless you avail of their free pearl promo today).  How can it be extra when there wasn’t any to begin with?, Race asks. =b

Bon Appetea

ECCO Building, Assumption Road cor. Gen. Luna Road

Baguio City, Philippines

X marks Zen Tea (refreshing) and Guiltea Pleasures (simple) for good tea-based beverages in Baguio.

Tea Off Part 2? Click here.