Mocha Blends goes to China, KL

Mocha Blends Phils. in partnership with Mocha Coffee Pty. of Australia, is setting up shops in Shanghai, China and Kuala Lumpur this first semester.

Mocha Blends Philippines president Florante de la Cruz and Mocha Coffee Pty. Ltd. Of Australia founding director Paul Manassis said the Mocha Blends shops will be in joint venture with local businessmen from these places. De la Cruz said the establishment of Mocha Blends outlets in these countries is now done deal after exploratory talks and follow up discussions were held in Manila.

"I invited them to Manila to attend my son’s wedding and I had discussions with each of them one at a time and they were impressed by the good quality and service of my franchisees," De la Cruz said.

Started two years ago, Mocha Blends Philippines now has 21 operating stores – many of them owned by franchisees – aside from putting up a training institute in Balintawak, Quezon City where baristas (master roasters) are taught on the art of grinding, preparing and making coffee according to international standards. Total investments for the 21 stores is P100 million, De la Cruz said.

Within the current month, Mocha Blends expects to operate another three to five stores as other stores are being constructed simultaneously at different points of the country. Most of the franchised outlets are in malls, where human traffic is heavy and people have time to socialize over cups of gourmet coffee and gourmet tea.

For the planned outlets in Shanghai, De la Cruz is finalizing partnership details with Edward Lee of Kosfa Industrial Corp., a trading and manufacturing company based in that area. He said Lee learned of the Mocha Blends business by accident, just like De la Cruz did earlier in Australia, before he started his coffee company.

For Kuala Lumpur, De la Cruz is in talks with Michael Tan, a local businessman who would have set up an outlet or two last year yet had the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome not his many Asian cities, he said.

Malaysia, he stressed, is a fast growing market for coffee and so is China, which despite its long history of being cultured in tea drinking is now getting the taste for coffee because of growing Western influence in China trade and lifestyle.

Manassis, who was in the country until last Thursday, said he was so pleased about the consistency in product quality and service among the different franchises, which is not the same case in Australia where each franchise has a different kind of service or product quality from each other.

"I am surprised that Filipinos are more efficient in maintaining the same quality of their products and the same quality service with their different outlets even if Mocha Blends has just been in operation for two years. I just wish though that this consistency will be maintained even if the company gets bigger through the years," Manassis said.

He said he was also glad to note that the future master coffee roasters he had been training at the institute in Balintawak had an appetite to learn not just how to make freshly brewed coffee but the entire spectrum of operating a coffee shop.

"As it is, becoming a barista is already a high paying job in the world. In Australia for instance, a barista, which is much sought skilled labor, earns about A$600 a week or even more, Manassis said.