MANILA -- Gourmet Farms and the Ramon Magsaysay Laureate Library and Museum bring together a combination of coffee, culture and conversation with its newly opened Library Café.

The library had a space available and it was offered to coffee pioneer and Gourmet Farms founder Ernest Escaler whose corporate headquarters are located in the same complex.

It was deliberate on the part of Gourmet Café and the Gaston Architectural Studio that the café be a virtual extension of the library instead of being walled off. From the space open to the public, one can see across the coffee counter into the library itself. While the space inside may be a little cramped with cubby holes for guests, the real draw is the al fresco area surrounded by the marble walls and floors of the Magsaysay Center arcade.

“We're trying to attract, you know, leaders, young leaders to come here and get inspired. We have a clean space. And now, we have good coffee,” said Susan Afan, president of the Ramon Magsaysay Awards Foundation, about the welcome addition to the library.

It is just possible to stay at this cafe from sunup to sundown. The café opens as early as 7 a.m. with hopes of attracting the runners and cyclists who train along Roxas Boulevard.

They even allow cyclists to bring in full-sized bicycles to park tableside while having their healthy black rice meals or sandwiches with their morning dose of caffeine.

Sadly, Gourmet Farms restaurants in Metro Manila closed down during the pandemic with just their concession businesses inside offices and BPOs still operational.

The Library Café brings Gourmet Farms' much-missed salads, sandwiches, and hot plates like chicken a la Kiev on the all-day dining menu with cakes and sweet endings perfect to pair with coffee.

By late afternoon as the sun sets over Manila Bay, the café turns into a chill-out bar serving up their cocktail version of the Dark and Stormy, the Cosmopolitan, the Highball, the Paloma, and the Caiprinhia, each freshened up with herbs from the Silang farm.

But the star of this café is the coffee. From the P25-a-cup coffee in the percolator just outside the café, to the coffee menu, this has everything for every level of coffee drinker. From dessert drinks for the 'gram to espresso-based drinks for the coffee purists, the café‘s centerpiece is the leather-bound San Remo Racer, the same espresso machine that is used in world coffee competitions abroad with friendly baristas who know how to pull a mean shot.

The beans are the last part of the equation and since Gourmet Farms is behind this café, the quality is a given. However, the supermarket coffee is not what’s used here. Rather, the beans are from Origins MNL, a sub-brand of Gourmet Farms that marks a more focused foray into specialty coffee which has its micro-roastery across the street.

Ice shaken and dessert coffee drinks are on the menu for that sugar-high. But the espresso drinks, notably the americano, the flat white and the cortado, highlight the Library Blend, exclusively roasted for the café that’s robust and full bodied but with just that proper hint of fruitiness in the end.

Do check out their pour-overs. For P190 for a 270ml carafe, this is a relatively painless way to try specialty coffee for those who find this a little intimidating. The baristas do know how to get the distinct fruity notes and natural sweetness out of the current selection of Huila Colombian or Ethiopian Yirgacheffe beans into a delicate cup of coffee. Patience is key as this way of brewing takes considerably longer than espresso-based drinks.

The café has a counter on the library side where coffee can be ordered. As of now, access to the library is limited because of renovations as it is currently transitioning from the Asian Library to become the Ramon Magsaysay Laureate Library in time for the 65th anniversary of the Ramon Magsaysay Awards. The library will be initiating projects as publishing children’s books and devoting sections of the library to honor the life, work and communities of the laureates.

The vision is for the library to be a safe space for conversation and the library will be inviting students and book clubs to use the space for discussion. In the works is an innovation hub where qualified young students can use the library’s resources for their research projects and hopefully inspire and ignite action.

The Library Café by Gourmet Farms is located on the Ground Floor of the Ramon Magsaysay Center on the corner of Roxas Boulevard and Quintos Street in Manila and is open from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.. Check out @thelibrarycafeph on social media for their complete menu.

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