Café Provencal: A brew-by-brew account

MANILA, Philippines - A hot food stop today is Café Provencal, where you get a whiff of picture-pretty Provence, France (imagine sun-kissed lavender fields swaying in the breeze, charming old cities blooming with art galleries, shops, and restaurants) and the fragrant aroma of great coffee, but that’s getting ahead of our brew-by-brew account.

On a lethargic Wednesday, I wake up and smell the coffee at Café Provencal in Shangri-La Plaza Mall on Edsa. I sit in a tres chic corner of Café Provencal, feeling like French royalty, and let one of the resto’s staff pamper me by preparing my first-ever chemex coffee.

Fish offering: Crispy dory patty with salad greens, grilled tomatoes, and apple blueberry jam, P210 Photos by JUN MENDOZA

FYI, chemex brews coffee using the infusion method, like drip coffee. It uses unbleached filter paper that’s a little thicker than auto-drip filters, resulting in a slower brew and a richer cup of coffee minus the bitterness. This specially formulated paper removes the undesirable sediments but allows the positive aromatic compounds to pass through. Thus, you get a sediment-free cup of coffee that’s rich and full-bodied vis-à-vis the weaker auto-drip coffee.

The highbrows and purists can thank American chemist Peter Schlumbohm for inventing the chemex brewer, which was released by Chemex Corporation in 1942.

An exquisite hourglass-shaped flask appears on my table. It’s made of heat-resistant glass with a polished wood collar and a leather tie — how’s that for coffee couture? Fact is, this work of handmade art has found its way in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, among other fine museums. The server pours just enough water to saturate the beans that are good for one serving or one mug of coffee. (Usually, after wetting the grounds, these are allowed to bloom for some 20 to 40 seconds. At this time, the trapped carbon dioxide escapes from the grounds so that they become heavier and cling to the bottom. The grounds float and the maximum flavor is extracted, something that auto-drip machines don’t do.) She gingerly pours more water, which drips down to the bottom of the glass ever so slowly. Once the water has passed through the filter, she removes the filter and pours me my mug of perfect coffee — intoxicatingly aromatic, full, and pure!

All that brew-haha: Café Provencal introduces chemex-brewed coffee — strong coffee with pure and clean taste minus the bitterness.

“You’re having Royal Pacific coffee,” Kathleen Joy Chua, marketing manager of Provencal Food Corporation, introduces me to my coffee.

Royal Pacific comes from the best Central American coffee beans, adds a twist, and yields the smoothest, most appealing coffee in the world.

Café Provencal also boasts its Million Dollar Brew, which combines three coffees to make the perfect brew — Sumatra, Mandheling, Costa Rica, and Ethiopia Yigacheffe. It’s big, sturdy, smooth.

“We like our coffee black,” shares Jacq Tan, general manager, Provencal Food Corporation. “Because if you have good beans and a good method to brew them with, you appreciate coffee best when it’s just black.”

Jacq spills the beans: “With chemex, you have to reach a certain temperature for you to produce the perfect cup of coffee. So we’re very particular about the temperature — it has to be just warm, not too hot. You don’t put boiling water to the beans because this will release the oil.”

So much brew-haha about coffee. And nowhere else but Café Provencal can you try chemex-brewed coffee that appeals to one’s taste buds and budget (only P90 per mug).

Smoking hot: Bacon mozza panini consists of smoked bacon, mozzarella, and pineapple mango jam.

“It’s for people looking for something different or one level up when it comes to coffee drinking,” Jacq shares.

My taste buds now fully awakened, I’m ready for something heartwarmingly nutritious to pair with my coffee. The stirring news is Café Provencal has come up with the perfect partner for your perfect cup of coffee. It recently introduced its Le Deli and taking center stage are its Deli-cious sandwiches prepared before your eyes. The selection includes: The real pastrami sandwich (house-cured pastrami, arugula, cucumber, Dijon mustard, strawberry fig jam); bacon mozza panini (smoked bacon, mozzarella, pineapple mango jam); and crispy fish patty with apple-blueberry (crispy dory fillet, salad greens, grilled tomatoes, apple blueberry jam).

Or you can go classic with Café Provencal’s morning toast (two slices of toast, butter, fresh homemade jam, free-range organic soft-boiled egg) that’s the toast of the town.

You can try all three sandwiches of Le Deli (which I did, but I just couldn’t finish the humongous servings, as in layers and layers of fillings, so I had the leftovers brown-bagged and enjoyed them immensely at work between deadlines).

“Oh, yes, some people just order take-outs,” says Kathleen. “We put up Le Deli because we wanted to offer something in the afternoon, something different for our customers to try.”

Fruity treats: Le Deli offers homemade jams from fresh locally grown organic fruits. A 4oz solo costs P95 while a 4oz trio pack costs P280.

But of course, there’s nothing like eating at Café Provencal, where you can enjoy the resto’s famous bestsellers (like the succulent Beef Burgundy with its herb bouquet, Provencal Roast Chicken, Rustic Pumpkin Soup, chicken salad, and barbecue porkchops) along with your fresh cup of coffee, freshly baked bread (a choice of sourdough, rye, baguette, and farmer’s loaf) and, yes, freshly made jams!

The jams are Jacq’s recipe. These really fruity spreadable preserves are made only from the freshest fruits in season. They’re lovingly, slowly cooked by Jacq with no water added and much less sugar than most fruit jams to cater to the health-conscious. You can taste more of the jam and less of the sugar.

The queen of jams adds, “They’re prepared at the table in front of the resto so people can see how they’re done and handled. We even bottle our jams here.”

For now, nothing in the world seems to matter — not even the rush-hour traffic jam outside — but the yummy jams in front of me. I ask Jacq and Kathleen, “What makes a good jam?”

Comes their sweet reply, “We think a good jam should be made with care and attention to produce the right consistency from the actual slow cooking rather than from thickening additives commonly found in quickly-made, mass-produced jams. It should be made from fresh, locally grown organic fruits and berries, free of chemical pesticides, to achieve a cleaner taste. And lastly, we prefer our jams to be less sweet compared to the others.”

French twist: Café Provencal at Shangri-La Mall gives a whiff of Provence. It can seat 100 diners.

On Café Provencal’s jam menu for now are strawberry fig jam, pineapple mango jam, and apple blueberry jam. “We will use whatever fruits are available on the market, like strawberries which are now aplenty in Baguio,” says Jacq. “We’ve tried many jams out there and they’re like jelly. Our jams have a different texture, they have no preservative and they’re not gelatin-based. We tried the jams in New York, where they have a different quality standard, and we’re inspired by that.”

Kathleen points out, “Everything here is fresh and homemade. We want to concentrate on making everything here because we only have one store.”

Good food, a good cup of coffee, good ambience, good music, and good company — I can’t think of a more perfect brew. For surely, when it comes to giving guests an unforgettable coffee experience, Café Provencal has bean there and done that.

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To find out what else is brewing at Café Provencal, visit its store at the second floor of Shangri-La Mall. It is open Monday to Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Friday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Sunday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. For inquiries, call 631-8046.