No.  I don't drink tea, with jam and bread.  I drink tea while reading, watching TV or toying with my android phone.  Sometimes, I drink tea when not a lot of customers visit the shop. But most of the time, I drink tea when I feel cold, or to ease flu and the chills that you get when you have fever.  You can say that I drink tea for health and medical reasons.

          Drinking tea originated from China. That is where my ancestors came from.  My father is a 100% tea addict.  He never ends a day without drinking cups and cups of his favorite tea.  His current favorite is the one packed by Unilever not Lipton, but the other brand with a chinese chariot logo.  Way back before when commercialized tea bags are not readily available, my parents used to buy tea in Manila's Eng Bee Tin.  But most of the time, our tea stocks came from our relatives in China who brings them here in the Philippines when they come and visit my grandparents.  But lately, given that tea is becoming an expensive product, gifting of tea is not the trend anymore. 

          I have just bought an unusual tea from an unlikely shop inside the mall.  I got two variants namely a "Ginger and Citrus Fruits" tea and a "Cranberry and Ginger" tea.  I tried the Cranberry variant, and it is good...not the best, but a good taste for flavored tea.  I've tasted Twinnings and Dilmah brands when we stayed in hotels.  English Breakfast variant of Twinnings is one of the best in the tea-bagged commercial teas.  But nothing beats the classic natural dried tea leaves with Jasmine blossoms and Green tea variants.  However, the best-selling and most famous of all natural tea is the Oolong Tea.  It is the Black of Teas. If we have Black Coffee, then we also have Oolong Tea.  In China, they have chilled Oolong Tea and Oolong Milk Tea. This is how Oolong tea is considered as the classic of all classic teas.

Photo: fotohunter/shutterstock c/o www.mnn.com

          The traditional tea drink is derived from the infusion of tea leaves.  The plant of the real tea comes from the genus Camellia.  The top leaves are dried, then roasted/heated to a perfect and ideal grade.  From there, the roasted leaves are infused in hot water to get the drinking tea.  Technically, there are different ways to get and produce the different types of traditional tea from tea leaves. But I am not an expert on the topic, the only thing I enjoy is drinking tea and trying out different teas in the market.  The non-traditional teas are the ones that use other natural fruits, plants and other ingredients.  Most of the time, these teas are collectively called as Herbal Teas.  The most popular herbal tea, in my humble opinion, is Ginger tea.  It is a favorite of mine especially the one produced by Gingen.  However, in the Philippines, ginger tea is not a foreign tea.  Ginger tea in our country is called Salabat.  It is naturally done by boiling ginger in water until the desired taste is achieved.  You either drink it pure or you add sugar to make it sweeter.  In more sophisticated version, you may add Honey instead of suger.

          A lot of herbal teas are now scattered in the tea market.  Chamomile tea and Chrysanthemum tea are also gaining popularity.  The two herbal teas are marketed as a soothing and relaxing teas.  But the natural dried chrysanthemum flowers sold in chinese stores around Binondo Manila are used for medicinal purposes as emphasized by traditional chinese medicine.  My mother used to give me Chrysanthemum Tea when I was a child, especially when I had fever and cold.  And the taste is good, but again, not as good as Jasmine tea for an aromatic type of tea. hehe.

          If you ever get a next time to visit the Philippines, do not forget to drop by Binondo Manila to get your naturally processed dried teas.  Majority of these shops are along Ongpin street.  But you may find other streets in the area interesting given that Binondo is one of the oldest Chinatown in the world.  For other teas, don't forget to try our local salabat or ginger tea if they are offered in you hostel or the place that you visited here in the Philippines.  But the best thing in returning from a trip, is to bring tea samples for you to enjoy after a Philippine vacation.  Remember, tea is not just a drink with jam and bread...but it is a drink for all seasons.

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      I've been planning to visit Antipolo City before, but the time was not fit for the adventure then.  But in May this year, I won gift certificates from an online contest that gave me the opportunity and the "need" to visit the bakasyunan city of yesteryears.

        From Angeles City, I rode a bus and a jeepney to reach Antipolo City in the province of Rizal.  A bus left Angeles City and dropped me in Cubao Metro Manila.  From the drop off point, I had to walk towards Farmer's Market and rode a jeepney.  The trip was quite long.  It was a two hour ride on the bus, and another 2 hour jeepney ride from Cubao.  The long travel time from the jeep is mainly caused by the Metro "traffic" in Manila going to Antipolo.  Finally, I reached Antipolo at 10:00 in the morning of a Saturday.  Lucky is what I am because a good samaritan offered me a ride to get to Bosay Resort, the GC sponsor.  The kuya wore all black from his jacket down to his shoes.  Thank you again to kuya if he ever reads this post.

       I left my baggage at the resort's office given that my stay will only start at 5:00 in the afternoon.  Therefore, as suggested by my friend who hails from this city,  I went to Pinto Art Museum.  A tourist destination that is not quite far but has a quite pricey transportation cost just to reach the place.  So if you plan to tour around Antipolo City, please do bring extra budget for your transpo expenses as the tricycles here will charge visitors more than what is required by the local city government.

 

        The Pinto Art Museum is located inside a gated subdivision.  The entrance is very miniscule in comparison to the museums total land area of responsibility.  When you enter the small entrance, you are required to pay the entrance fee of 200.00 per head as of this date of posting.  Not too small for the budget traveller. hehe.  But since it was THE only place that I have planned to visit in Antipolo, I nevertheless paid the fee and enjoyed the best ever Art Museum experience I had in my life.  The National Museum is the other museum that I have so far visited since 2010.  I have yet to visit the place again given that it's almost a decade since the first and only last time. 

 

          Pinto Art Museum is a grand exhibition of all kinds of Artistic Works in the Philippines.  It showcases living Art legends and not so living ones too.  But what makes the Museum memorable, is the landscape and the series of interconnected buildings and structures that houses the great works of art.  Aside from these, Pinto Art Museum is a big garden to explore, although not into a full blown garden with different flora species, but a very good presentation of garden landscaping as an art form of its own.  

         The buildings and structure of Pinto also showcases Architecture as an art form too.  From the external design of the houses and building, down to the internal execution of structures and design including the furnitures and fixtures, the Museum truly maintains and greatly emphasizes its essence as an Art Museum wherein you will discover that there is Art in every step that you take inside its perimeter.  The best and most memorable works of Art that I encountered in the Museum are the metal sculpture of a pregnant woman,  the collage of paintings on canvass in the first gallery, the paintings with bubble-wrap overlay design, the stone structures scattered around the garden and definitely, the Rollete Artwork by Leonard Aguinaldo that is made from rubber, the orangy rubber that we use in rubber stamping.  So if you intend to visit the museum, don't forget to look for the Rollete and try your luck.   I got "Kuripot"...that is stingy in the english language. haha!  But still, people say that artworks displayed in the Museum are rotational.  They don't stay forever  in their places in the museum.  The artworks are changed after a period or two.  Nevertheless, you will definitely find and see interesting artworks at Pinto Art Museum.

Untitled artwork made in Rubbercut material by Leonard Aguinaldo

         Early in the morning of Sunday, the next day, I woke up to leave Antipolo City.  I went to Binondo Manila to visit my nephew and niece.  Luckily, my brother was there to allow me to see them and play with the kids.  Linus and Lilo are the best pamangkins in the world.....that is because they are the only ones I have. yeehah!