Brewing Peace in a Cup: My MilkT Café Escape

Cozy and calm, warm and home—words I can always think of whenever I hear the word "cafe". Have you ever been to this place? In your town or another? For what reason? Keep your answer as you read my MilkT Cafe experience I had on a warm afternoon of September. Whatever reasons you have, I would love to hear them from you, and share them in the comments. For now, I'll share mine and I hope you'll have a good read. This is now Talay and I am writing again for my dearest readers of Hive.

Research has always been our main opponent in college, peeping into our paperwork and crawling along lines in our folders. This one was a villain but not to the extent that I am shaming it, since I know how helpful it is in many fields. The first week of September was nothing but filled with research inquiries and work, and there came a day around that week that we chose to set it aside and find ourselves again first in a cafe near our high school, which was told to be relaxing for college students. I know it is rude to leave research alone, but nothing is ruder than letting your body break without your knowledge. To ease the stress and crisis of a graduating student, my girl friends and I visited MilkT—a heavenly asylum for stressed college students.

Right after our little inquiry in research, we went immediately to the said spot because we could no longer bear with its demand and the tiredness it had given. MilkT has been serving authentic coffee and pastries since 2021, but the branch we visited was newly built in our town. It is nestled in Saruc Bldg., Poblacion, San Remigio, Cebu to be specific, right in front of Cultural Beach and near the iconic Lapyahan Sa San Remigio. It has two branches, the other one in Bogo City. The MilkT Cafe focuses on serving coffee, milk tea, and café-style drinks. But it also serves famous international puddings and delicacies, just like their mango sticky rice which attracted many visitors.

We ordered fries, cheese sticks and a fried meat balls and milk teas to pair it well. Aside from nachos, I also love eating fries, anything or anywhere, whether it is from Cafetana, McDonald's, or from your house. This cafe offers a lot of food at various prices. They have a banana pudding series, for instance, like banana pudding iced latte, banana pudding matcha latte, etc. They offer specialty coffee and authentic milk tea and bento meals or packed lunches like cream dory fish fillet, firecracker shrimp roll, and more.

We stayed in the cafe for four hours since it was very cozy and comfortable. The air conditioning was so soothing to our tensed nerves that we completely forgot our research works, which was the goal. We took a lot of photos because that is how we always spend our cafe time—capturing a lot of photographs we can come back to sooner to remind ourselves of the peaceful times we had and that good times are coming.

I enjoyed it with all my heart and it took calmness to the highest extent. I am grateful to be sitting on the comfortable chair in a cozy cafe because when I was in first year, I was barely living financially and even my allowance was carefully spent. Now, life took another turn for me, bringing us to a good spot and my family having the comfortable life they worked hard for. Before, I felt guilty spending just pesos for fries, knowing I didn’t deserve it, but now, I can visit anytime without worries of losing my allowance for the next day.

These girl friends have been my supporters and safe people since first year. We witnessed each other's hardship and growth, helped each other to succeed, and brought out each other's potential by believing in ourselves. College is a partnership, I do believe that we need a person or a group of people in order to succeed in this different world in an unfamiliar campus. No man is an island, they say, and that goes the same for college students. Although we can still be free to go on a journey alone, I strongly take it as a fact that life in college turns into an easy one because of our friends. People who you can trust, which takes a long process to be accurate, and people who will cheer for you in failure and in success.

Now that's how I experienced MilkT Cafe. Not only a fries and a milk tea or an aesthetic cafe, but with a bit of realization of how far we have come and how we did get here. It was more than just a cafe stop; it was a pause that reminded me how growth tastes sweeter when shared with the right people. And as we stepped out of MilkT, the warm breeze of San Remigio carried a gentle promise—that beautiful days like this will always find their way back to us.