Symbol of new consumer economy

UPWARD COFFEESHOP VENTURE – We have to take a brief respite from political issues now that the hoopla has finally simmered down right after the filing of certificate of candidacy (COCs). So folks, it’s back to business. No business in the country, Davao City in particular that symbolizes the new consumer economy better than the coffeeshop venture. Few coffee joints opened their doors on quiet lanes in the city five years ago. Today, many homegrown, well-established local as well as foreign brands opened in different locations around the city – in shopping malls, hotels, entertainment centers and commercial areas.
Sales have been growing 65 to 70 percent according to economists and coffee joint owners. Coffee companies notably the global marketers have to cater to local taste, which can take some doing. Even the homegrown coffeeshop proprietors adapt to the latest trend. One popular fruit-flavored coffee taste in the city is so customized to the local flavor that visitors especially foreigners would scarcely recognize it. Meanwhile other coffeeshop establishments likewise tried introducing ‘simply the best’ alternatives.
Try stepping inside among the perpetually jam-packed coffeeshops in the city’s busy commercial centers and you’ll find plenty of examples of the yuppie group and the typical emerging middle-class big spenders: clad in fashionable and signature jeans, jabbering expensive mobile phones, other full-featured electronic gadgets and drinking overpriced lattes. Consumers especially the younger set of coffee lovers are actually reshaping how large sections of the new consumer economy work.
Coffee connoisseurs realized the coffeeshop business would do well anywhere in the country’s different bustling metropolis because coffee drinkers would never find such a place to sit, chat and relax. Furthermore, success in the business would require entrepreneurs to sell pricey coffee to a beverage-drinking nation. In every corner of every town and city across the country, you can buy a bottle or a can of softdrink for about P18. Coffeeshops on the other hand were asking customers to pay P80 for a cup of brewed coffee or P120 for a cappuccino. But culture shift was working in favor of the coffeeshop entrepreneurs. Thanks to inroads by modern communication technology, cable television and foreign brands. Business analysts and economists say “Filipino consumers nowadays want to do what the rest of the country and the world are doing.”
And here’s more about coffee and tea – one of the world’s best and finest. Browsing Davao City’s hundreds of coffeeshops in search of the prefect cup of brew? Save yourself some time and effort and make straight for Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf (CBTL) located at the newly-opened SM Premier in Lanang. CBTL is now the undisputed choice of the city’s coffee cognoscenti. Coffee specialists CBTL president Walden Chu and managing director Allen Tan describe the company as one of the pioneers in the coffee industry.
The CBTL at SM Premier is the company’s second outlet in the city and 50th branch worldwide, which likewise coincides with its 50th anniversary in the coffeeshop venture. According to the two coffee buffs, it was just a matter of time before the company would open another branch in the city. The eponymous coffeehouse has been a roaring success ever since – that was almost 50 years ago when it opened its first outlet in California. The secret of CBTL’s success is the product itself, Chu and Tan proudly say. The beans are imported fresh, home-roasted or thrown away out once it had been stocked more than the required number of days. It’s the kind of quality control that keeps customers from coming back. There are lots of coffee tastes to choose from: light and subtle, rich and smooth, dark and distinctive, flavored and decaffeinated. The company certainly believes in precision and doing things wholeheartedly and coffee fanatics in Davao City will certainly drink to that.
Customers at the same time would enjoy the richness and aroma of whole tea leaf goodness. CBTL offers a variety of the world’s best and finest tea: black tea, green tea, flavored tea, flavored green tea, oolong tea, fruit infusion, herbal infusion and decaffeinated teas. As we’ve mentioned earlier, one would never find such a place to sit, chat and relax – sipping a cup of the best and finest coffee and tea.