Of Paper Cups and Music

* I slept at around 7pm last night and woke at 12 noon today. I felt so terrible so I fixed myself a mug of instant coffee and a pack of Nesvita to perk me up. Feeling much better, I took a bath and pressed another mug of real coffee this time while listening to my friend Eric's playlist. Then I felt really good. And that is how I started my Monday.

* Last night, my band, The Bookshelf Cassette, practiced about 7 to 8 songs for our gig with Meliora on Wednesday (9 pm at CAnton). I was so happy with what we did that I only ate once the whole day and got sick right after my bandmates, Bessy Espina and Eric Soliven, left the apartment. But I'm ok now. If you feel awful, just drink coffee, it will keep the physical and mental blues away. Become a fan on Facebook! Just type "The Bookshelf Cassette" and you can hear some of our covers.

* Tomorrow, our paper cups from Primatech Paper Solutions will be arriving! Hopefully, you guys, our customers, will be experiencing for the first time, a CAnton Frothiccino in a 16 ounce paper cup. That will surely be be a momentous event.

* Switching to paper cups is our way of contributing help to the environmental and waste disposal concerns of our beloved town of Los Banos. If you have noticed we have bought new trash cans with proper labels indicating where you should throw your biodegradable and non-biodegradable trash. Although paper cups are more eco-friendly than plastic cups, a 16 ounce cup is still a 16 ounce cup. It's still trash. And we would like to lessen the use of solid waste in our cafe. So here's what we've thought of:

When you buy a Cafe Antonio Tumbler (available in 16 oz orange and/or white w/ or w/o handle designs; you can purchase it at the cafe or on http://cafeantoniostore.multiply.com) and bring it to the cafe to order a FROTHICCINO, your NEXT order of ANY FROTHICCINO (except FoMs) will only be 75 pesos.

Example:

1.) You come to the cafe with your tumbler then you order a Choco-Macadamia Frothiccino for its regular price of 120 pesos (your drink should be put in your tumbler).

2.) The next time you come to the cafe and you order the same drink or, let's say, a Rocky Road Frothiccino (Php 110), it will only be 75 pesos.

3.) Then if you bring your tumbler to the cafe every time and ask the barista to put your drink in the tumbler, you'll be able to get a 75-peso Frothiccino every other day.

Here's a more visual example. Let's say you start on a Monday with a Choco-Macadamia Froth,

MONDAY - ChocoMac Froth (Php 120)

TUESDAY - ChocoMac Froth (Php 75)

WEDNESDAY - Black Forest (Php 90)

THURSDAY - ChocoMac Froth (Php 75)

FRIDAY - Mocha Froth (Php 75)

SATURDAY - Caramel Cream (Php 75)

* And that's what you can do with your tumbler. We hope that this would help in lessening our trash. Tumblers are made-to-order, so better reserve one now at the cafe. And you'll get the tumbler the next day. You can return it if it has defects and we will replace it for free.

* Okay, so we hope this would be a brand new start for all of us! We would be glad to here your comments and suggestions.

The Beauty in Breakdown

CAFE NEWS

* We're pleased to announce that our FoM for October, the Brownie Fudge Frothiccino (BFF) was ordered TWENTY-SIX (26) times last week! I think that was already the total number of last month's FoM orders! Very good, very good. If you haven't tried this drink yet, better order now, don't wait for October to end.

CAFE ANTONIO 100% BENGUET ARABICA COFFEE

* For coffee-lovers and for those dependent on brewed coffee, we have a new product for you coming this November. Starting next month, 100% Benguet Arabica Coffee Beans will be available in 500 gram bags. You can also buy a cup of pressed coffee at our cafe.

* So what are Arabica beans? Basically, Arabica is the species of coffee grown in high altitude areas like Benguet. It is a very high maintenance crop unlike its lowland counterpart, the Robusta. Arabica coffee has a smoother and more delicate flavor, has less caffeine, and is mostly used in specialty coffee shops featuring Arabicas from different parts of the world.

* You can try a sample of our Benguet Arabica beans at the cafe for free this month, just ask me (Jabez) to brew you a cup and we'll talk more about the intricacies and subtleties of coffee.

* We just bought a 12 oz French Press for our cafe. Now using a coffee press is the best way to brew coarse to medium ground coffee. Use this method instead of using a home drip coffeemaker, and I promise you your coffee will taste better and not bitter.

* For more tips and tricks about coffee, you can visit my "dead" coffee blog at http://thecoffeeofjabez.blogspot.com or by clicking the blog title. It's a blog where I used to put my coffee insights while I was training to be a barista and before the cafe started. I stopped writing for that blog when I started the cafe's blog. It's kinda difficult for me to write two blogs.

UPLB LOYALTY DAY

* We didn't attend the parade since we had work during that time but we would like to thank everybody, especially the alumni, for supporting us on that day. Our sales just went "boom" that night, and we were all dead-tired at the end of the day. Our blender was also dead-tired and it literally went "boom". It stopped functioning after our friend, Eric, ordered a custom, Red Ribbon-inspired, White Forest Frothiccino. Thankfully, it was the last order. What a way to end the week! To take things positively, it was a way of saying that the cafe outdid itself last week, Friday was definitely Showtime and Saturday was crazier than Showtime, imagine that!

* Thank you everyone, we hope to get our blender fixed, right now we're using two newly bought blenders, we hope it would last this time. This week should be as amazing! We would like to thank our graphic artist, Jeg, for designing our "Mumunti Man, UP Naman" tarpaulin. He did it on very short notice (he didn't sleep). Thanks also to Aldo, Candy, and Sherwin for helping us conceptualize the witty statement for the tarp. It really got a lot of buzz on Facebook.

* See you this week everyone! Mabuhay ang Los Banos at ang UPLB!

UPLB Loyalty Day 2009

CAnton Runs on Tropa-wer!

* Oh my, it's been days since I've gone online. I didn't get the chance to update you guys about this month's Flavor of the Month, the very popular Brownie Fudge Frothiccino (BFF) or the Ultimate Fattening Frothiccino, as I personally like to call it. Yes, it's back, after a year! It was so highly anticipated, it was ordered 8 times on its first day last Thursday and 8 times again in one hour the next day! For our new customers, the BFF is like a drink and a dessert in a 16-oz cup. It has two kinds of chocolate pastries (baked by Yummings Pastry Shop) literally crammed in a chocolate and Irish cream-based Frothiccino. It's really a treat for those who love brownies and chocolate. You get all of these delicious goodness for only 130 pesos.



* Have you noticed our Shirts Avenue display at the back of the bookshelf? Well, for those of you who ordered UP shirts at the cafe, your shirts will be a bit delayed. Shirts Avenue's printing press is in Marikina and it has temporarily stopped operations due to Typhoon Ondoy. We will just inform you about further developments. You can still reserve shirts at the cafe.

* Last week was a crazy week for us. Everybody was prepared for another typhoon and customer turnout was a little unpredictable. Typhoon Pepeng got a lot of hype, so Showtime Friday last week wasn't exactly the showtime we were expecting. Thursday night attracted more people and also Saturday, maybe it's a way of celebrating Pepeng's no-show in Elbi. Thankfully, Pepeng didn't become the kind of typhoon we were expecting. We're definitely not ready for another blow just yet.

* Again, we would like to thank our customers for a successful run last week, in spite of the calamities and the odds that defy us, it's always comforting for us to see that the CAnton faithful is always there to support us. Remember last Tuesday night? That was really something else, we had people waiting outside because the cafe was so full we ran out of tables. And last Saturday, even though the air-conditioning had gone bonkers, droves of people still went in. Is this encouragement or pressure? Or both?

* If the band, Meliora, has Tro-fans on Facebook (tropa who are fans), CAnton runs on Tropa-wer, where friends of friends of friends just support each other. I'm really looking forward to this week. We'll be buying new trashcans, the kind where you can segregate the plastics, paper, and biodegradable stuff. And I'll be the barista again tomorrow (Monday) because Neil has to finish a number of requirements before the semester ends.

* Well, I hope we all end the semester just right, with no hang-ups whatsoever. And I hope you guys would celebrate good times at CAnton when all these first sem drama ends, just like last year!