Coffee beans and grounds from Amadeo's Best

I am a coffee addict. I think it runs in the family. Growing up, I wake up every morning to the strong aroma of kapeng barako brewing in the percolator. Kapeng barako, I suppose is THAT strong, that it can actually wake me up more effectively than a persistent alarm clock.

My mother and father always take their strong brewed coffee with condensed milk (a la Vietnamese Coffee). The condensed milk, by the way, always has to be Milkmaid. Otherwise, it wouldn't taste as good. I should know. I've tried all the other brands especially when there are no stocks of Milkmaid in the supermarket. And so for a long time, I'd been taking my coffee with condensed milk, pouring a hefty amount of it in my coffee cup until I attain just the right sweetness. There are no measurements I can give you here, just the advice that put as much as you like. Sweetness, after all, is relative.

Lately though, I'd been taking my coffee black. I cannot say that I actually enjoy this over the condensed milk-laced coffee I am so used to sipping. It is, I must confess, a self-imposed restriction owing to my aging metabolism. I've read somewhere that after age 25, an individual's metabolism slows down considerably. But this has not dampened my love for coffee. I just learned to love it in a different way, that's all.

Taking my coffee black, however, means that I have to have good beans all the time in the brewer. Definitely no instant coffee for me. So this has pushed me into a frenzied quest for good coffee beans. Don't get me wrong, I am no connoiseur. I cannot tell you about the nuances of the different coffee varieties or explain them to you in technical terms. What I can tell you though is whether this particular coffee is "good" or "bad".

And so, on a trip to Tagaytay a few weeks ago, we stopped by this little roadside coffee store called Amadeo's Best. We have tried their exotic blend and it is good. I recommend you get a pack or two next time you visit Tagaytay. Their store is located along Aguinaldo Highway right after One Destination and before the Petron gas station.

You can check out the prices of Amadeo's Best coffees, here.

Photo credit: tagaytayridge.blogspot.com