Café de Lipa at Market Market Taguig (A Coffee Shop Review)

A promising cafe, but there are a few things they need to work on.

Cafe de Lipa from the outside

I went to Café de Lipa with my son after watching Transformers 2 (Optimus Prime was WICKED!). This was my second time going there and honestly the first visit was disappointing. I could’ve written my review then just like what I did with the other coffee shops but being the biased person that I am, I gave this Filipino owned coffee shop another chance (Ano magagawa ko? Pinoy ako eh!).

Cafe de Lipa

 

The First Visit.

On the first visit, I ordered a cup of brewed coffee for takeout. After a few sips I found it too strong so I approached the barista and asked what beans they were using, he said they were using Barako beans only (tanga ko rin diba?) Lipa after all is in Batanggas and Batanggas is well known for its Barako production which they in turn promote. In my opinion, there are two things wrong here, first is the name, next is the product itself. Please read on before you crucify me.

Café de Lipa, a catchy name, it instills nationalism and pinoy pride, no problem with that right? Wrong! One should choose the name of their store carefully, in this case, the owners placed a limit on their coffee selection to barako only just to keep up with the name of the store. Let’s look at Starbucks, the name is not confining, we know it’s a foreign franchise but the name doesn’t say that it is imported only, now the owners can easily introduce both local and imported coffee, Arabica robusta or liberica beans. Do you get my point? Ok, so maybe that was what the owners wanted in the first place, serving Barako only beans thereby reintroducing it to the coffee drinking public, this is where the second problem comes in.

Liberica or Kapeng Barako as it is localy known is a coffee varietal comparable to robusta, cupping wise. It is common knowledge that it’s strong both in flavor and caffeine. But the coffee I ordered the first time was way too strong, I have never drunk barako before but I was pretty sure this was not how it was supposed to taste. I’ll rant about that later. Let’s go back to the Barako beans.

Now close your eyes and imagine a cup of barako coffee being drunk by someone, who do you picture that someone to be? Or better yet, how old is the one drinking? Old right? Barako has been drunk by our parents and grandparents before and they have grown to like the taste. If the elderly are your target clients then this is good but what about the younger ones? Look at any foreign coffee shop and you will see that majority of their customer are young, and young people like sweet drinks rather than strong. Café de Lipa does serve blended drinks (which I haven’t tried) and they do look appealing but the question is how do you encourage young people to come in to your store if they have the  impression that the store is for the more “mature” people?

Add a catch phrase!

Nike “Just do it”, Coke “Open Happiness”, KFC “Finger Licking Good”, Jollibee “Be Happy”. I could go on and on, my point is, these companies didn’t just create brand names, they attached a phrase to it, something that people can easily remember and give them an idea of who and what your company stands for.    

In the end, it’s all about how you “position yourself” within the market. And when I say “position yourself,” I don’t mean you sit in a chair with your back straight and hands on your lap. No, you need to position your coffee shop in the mind of the buying public, Ideally, your name and catch phrase will convey all the information in as few words as possible so that customers know what to expect when they enter your shop.

Brewed Barako Coffee at Cafe de Lipa

I’m not done yet. Second visit.

The coffee this time was just right, it was like the cup of brewed Folgers coffee I had in the office (imported I know, it wasn’t mine). If the barista during my first visit accidentally messed up the ratio of ground beans to water and the second barista didn’t then we have a problem with consistency. If I was somebody else then I wouldn’t come back to the store after drinking such a bitter cup of coffee. Customer lost. Consistency is what every company should aim for.

Another thing I found lacking was their takeout cup, it looked nice but nowhere does it mention Café de Lipa on the outside. I don’t know if the owners were the ones who came up with the idea of how the cup should look like but they’re missing something here, MARKETING! If somebody orders something for takeout,  that’s free advertisement. If I buy something from “Figaro” it will say Figaro on the outside for everyone to see. My suggestion would be they just make the takeout cup plain white with “Café de Lipa” written in red. The coffee cup they have displayed in the café had a similar design to what I’m suggesting (and it looked great) but when I asked if they were selling it, the barista said no. Free marketing missed again.  

I hope all of this made sense, I was in a rush to finish this because my wife wanted to play poker online. It may look like a very harsh review compared to the others (I only have 3 reviews including this) but this is how I support anything Filipino. I do not care about foreign franchises, I will make reviews about them but it won’t be as extensive as compared to a purely pinoy concept. Parang akong magulang na mas pinangangaralan ang sariling anak kaysa iba dahil mahal ko sila (huhuhu iyak na).