BAYANI BREW's Purple Leaf Tea! (A Product of Gawad Kalinga's Enchanted Farm) - Awesome!

(Read first: Ultimate Taste Test X @ Rockwell: Foodie’s Cheat Sheet)

UTT X: Rockwell Winner #2:
BAYANI BREW

^4.22

167 foodies rated 5- Awesome! I would recommend it!
118 foodies rated 4- I love it!
92 foodies rated 3- We had a good time.
41 foodies rated 2- It is OK.
5 foodies rated 1- Thanks, but it could be better.

Bayani Brew (P45 SRP – 400 ml).

I’m impressed with the products that come out of Gawad Kalinga’s Enchanted Farm. The social entrepreneurs from the farm know that you have to sell really good quality products first, and that the social cause is not an excuse to be mediocre.

You have to try their Bayani Brew’s Purple Leaf Tea! Yes, it is made from the purple leaf of kamoteng kahoy. 🙂 It is very Filipino and produced by the community of Gawad Kalinga’s Enchanted Farm.

Gourmet Keso’s Chevre Goat Cheese from GK Enchanted Farm was the first to win the UTT series (Rockwell UTT 6.0 rating 3.88). Now, it’s the turn of GK Farm’s Ice Tea Brand called Bayani Brew to win big — the top 2 spot — in the Rockwell UTT X series. Wow! Congratulations! 🙂

Check out all the GK Enchanted Farm Products in the Morning Mercato every weekend in BGC!

The Story behind BAYANI BREW:

Bayani Brew traces its origins from a native formulation consisting of lemongrass (tanglad), pandan and other indigenous leaves rich in antioxidants and Vitamin C (calamansi) introduced by the nanays (mothers) of the Gawad Kalinga community in Brgy. Encanto, Angat, Bulacan over a year ago. Tita Linda would serve this concoction scalding hot from the casserole to visitors at the GK Enchanted Farm. GK founder and father Tony Meloto had the “whynot?!” idea of serving this ice-cold (albeit at that time, there was still neither ice nor electricity at the farm! 🙂 ) and possibly bottling these refreshing drinks. Visitors and patrons would then ask for more (even finding it addictive at times–but in a good, healthy way of course). The rest, as they say is history.

The other variant Bayani Brew purple leaf tea, introduced by yet another nanay, Tita Yolly, was a shockingly bright pink drink with a refreshing tingling sensation served cold while Team GK workers and volunteers were doing a planning session for the development of sustainable livelihood programs for the GK Enchanted Farm one evening. More surprising than its natural color was the secret/mysterious ingredient “talbos ng kamote,” the most unglamorous, neglected, prolific (they sort of grow like weeds), and yet uber-healthiest plant on earth. Google it, if you don’t believe us!

So taken for granted is this plant, that not a few times have we probably heard that derogatory catchphrase to just “go home and plant camote.” But thanks to the nanays at the GK Enchanted Farm–the once pejorative is now innovative; the formerly insulting, now incredibly refreshing!

The next Bayani Brew drink may yet be another native, healthy, and surely yummy concoction of the nanays we fondly call our Titas. There is just so much natural goodness of our people and our land left untapped!

Hence, the name Bayani Brew does not just stand for our love of country or “bayan,” but also for honouring these unsung heroines (our personal “bayanis” who not just concocted these delightful drinks); and more sentimentally, for the “bayanihan” effort of local talent, farmers, and social entrepreneurs to bring this once crazy idea to the market. Bayani Brew wants to be remembered not only for its refreshing beverages, but as part of brewing a social innovation movement comprising a new breed of Pinoys who are not just learning to love living a healthy and natural lifestyle, but more importantly, who are bat-sh*t crazy in love with our country.

About Gawad Kalinga and Bayani Brew

*Bayani Brew was inspired by the nation-building movement that is Gawad Kalinga, established in 2003, with the social justice battlecry giving homes to the homeless, land to the landless and food for the hungry. Now on its second phase, to achieve more sustainability, the GK Enchanted Farm (GK-EF) pilot site, situated in Brgy. Encanto, Angat, Bulacan, was set-up in in 2010 as a village university for social enterprise development, and a social tourism destination that aspires to bring the market to the farm.

GK-EF is mostly home to relocated settlers (as is the case for those usually displaced to Bulacan) and hopes to entice reverse migration by providing sustainable livelihood opportunities outside of the metropolis. GK-EF is the template for countryside development that transformed a 14-hectare (2ha of which is where the residents/”kapitbahayans” reside)–once idle, abandoned, barren wasteland–into fields of abundance, and aspires to do so in at least 24 other potential GK communities all over the country.

The guys running Bayani Brew were mandated by Tony Meloto to undertake the arduous task of scaling up this sustainable livelihood project and develop it into a full-fledged social enterprise that can create more social impact, help establish more GK Enchanted Farms all over the country, including making the country’s subsistence agrarian reform beneficiaries wealthier. The vision-mission is to ensure that, as the country marches towards progress, no one is left behind. As if that were not daunting enough, we have a 2024 deadline to end povertea (pun intended) by creating prosperity.

The challenge posed is simple: there is so much unproductive land; there is so much wealth in this country; and yet we continue to import and patronize foreign-branded products as if ours were substandard, when they are not (or shouldn’t be).

Like other GK Enchanted Farm social enterprises, Bayani Brew derives its drive to succeed in a market dominated by the bigwigs with the vision of uplifting the lives of the poor in the GK community and of the subsistence farmers, by ensuring that when these products are offered to the market, it will be a far cry from usual “pity” purchases. Bayani Brew, along with other GK Enchanted Farm social enterprises, are proudly producing and sourcing locally only, products that we can compete with globally. To paraphrase one of our bayanis,– “the Filipino is worth buying for.”

What Foodies Say About Bayani Brew:

Perfect taste
Authentic taste
Healthy juices
Wonderful!
Different but good
Great!
Pink is good
Pwede pala na gawing refreshment ang pagsigang
Really disappointing. Yuck!
Good, Not too sweet
Very refreshing
Ok tea for a good cause is fine by one.
Amazing product! Didn’t expect it. Cheers to businesses for a cause.
Surprisingly delicious & refreshing
the lemongrass
Great Job!
Amazing & for a good cause
Not a fan of calams
Interesting
Liked the lemon grass
Intensity taste
Exotic taste but really good
Kakaiba but has potential
Super didn’t expect
Innovative
I like the kamote tea
nice unique flavor
sweetpotato 2thumbs up ! Love the decals
pandan better sweet potato
great specially the camote
great refresher
serve it hot warm
good healthy
great idea
healthy daw
unique flavor lots potential
love it
weirdly delicious proudly filipino
you guys had me at kamote tops
I like the mixuture of the drinks
didn’t like taste
definitely buy these
unxepectable awesome
healthy definitely
the pink one kind of stings but the other flavor was good
refreshing
healthy and good
love the name love the taste
lemon the best
the best the lemon
go nationwide
taste good
healthy yummy
great concept healthy
I love it that (it’s) all natural
lemongrass
refreshing
Filipino Pride
Good Concepts Very Good
Liked the pink one better
ice tea
I hope they get available soon
Masarap na Masarap
Very refreshing
Calamansi Good
It should be out in all stores now! And replace all artificial flavored tea
Add more Body.
Delicious and Unique.

Congratulations to the Social Entrepreneurs of Gawad Kalinga!

BAYANI BREW
Gawad Kalinga Enchanted Farm’s Ice Tea Brand
Pundicion Street Brgy. Encanto Angat, Bulacan
Email Address: bayanibrew@gmail.com
Contact Person: Ron Dizon/ Xilca Alvarez
Mobile No.: +63 917 582-1248/ +63 917 819-4522

Ultimate Taste Test X: 2nd Rockwell UTT Winners:

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