THE trend on commercial milk teas in Davao City for the past few years had been quite overwhelming. There were some who decided to franchise known brands, while others opted to establish their own name.
With all the other food-related trends, one of the surfacing concerns is how it would affect one's health. Amid this milk tea and boba craze, there were articles published concerning sugar levels among others.
But when you're purchasing food studied and made by a food scientist, your fear of your health somehow subsides. You know you're in good hands. Business partners Kriza Faye Calumba and Diocy Cloribel Guilabtan recently decided to venture into a milk tea business with a twist. Armed with their passion and interest in marketing and probiotics, the two pursued their probiotic milk tea business -- The Tea Culture PH.
You might have heard of Calumba when her probiotic beer from durian rind made it into national news. Calumba is a food technologist from Davao City who worked on lactic acid bacteria for her undergraduate thesis in UP Mindanao. Eventually when she had the chance to do further study at the University of Louisiana, that's where the study on probiotic beer started.
"The plan was to primarily develop probiotic milk tea products. With the growing yogurt business of Mylene, a fellow food scientist, we decided to tap her expertise. We are also incorporating other locally produced ingredients. Our recipes are also backed by science as we refer to published articles to make sure that the formulations are best for the wide range of consumers," Calumba said in an interview.
The business partnership was already conceptualized early this year but was postponed a number of times due to the pandemic. However, it was a good time for the both of them to reassess their goals. With Guilabtan knowledgeable of the business industry and Calumba on food science, they decided to finally launch it.
"To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to launch yogurt milk tea with real, living lactic acid bacteria to deliver health benefits. Probiotics are shown to improve gastrointestinal health and have been linked to strengthening our immune system, and we are looking forward to helping our customers realize these benefits," said Calumba who hopes their product would help communicate food science to the general public.
For the first few months of the business, they started with an online launching. Orders were taken through their Facebook page, The Tea Culture PH. Positive feedback came pouring in as they also decided to add more flavors to the menu.
Finally, on August 28, Friday, they opened their physical shop at MS Land Complex, Matina, Davao City, in front of Toyota Matina. They are open daily from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Currently, they have six flavors available on their menu: Signature yogurt pearl, Apple cinnamon yogurt pearl, Cacao yogurt pearl, Mango yogurt, Pineapple yogurt, and Banana yogurt.