Skip to main content

My Experience with Tealive Cebu at the Ayala Central Bloc

I have tasted several foreign-owned tea shops. My first experience with tea shops was with Chatime (read here). Now, I heard of this new coffee shop (or tea shop, take your pick) called Tealive. At first, I thought it was Taiwanese but when I Googled it--it was Malaysian. It made sense that the company uses only Halal-approved ingredients since Malaysia has a huge Muslim population. The founder is Malaysian-Chinese businessman Bryan Loo of Loob Holdings. Loob here also means inside as the Tagalog language also derives from the Malay language. Tealive would later head to the Philippines. It would be like getting Filipinos closer to their Malaysian heritage after all. 

The branches in Cebu include SM City, SM Seaside, and Ayala Central Bloc. The one I ate was at Ayala Central Bloc. Someone gave me a taste of their sandwich and their signature coffee. I was pretty much impressed that I decided to dine in there. I went to try their lychee tea and chees burger. For a note, their ham sandwich is chicken ham and not chicken plus ham since it's a Halal-approved establishment. I have tasted their chicken ham (and it tastes better than pork harm) and their hamburgers. I'm definitely looking forward to tasting more of their tea.


The Marketing Interactive shows the marketing done by Loo himself. 

Tealive is expanding into Manila and has appointed Mike Dumaual to lead its operations as GM. The Southeast Asian tea chain said on LinkedIn that Dumaual will be leading the charge on business operations across the Philippines, including store expansion strategy and boosting the Tealive brand to be Philippines’ preferred lifestyle tea brand.

Meanwhile, Dumaual has over 22 years of experience with a focus on marketing and brand management, in the F&B and FMCG sectors with such as Mang Inasal, Jollibee, and Burger King. “I’m truly excited to lead Tealive’s grand entry into the Philippine market, knowing how milk tea-crazy this country is. The ambition is not just to make it a milk tea player but a major and respected F&B lifestyle brand that Filipinos will love," he said.

Bryan Loo (pictured), CEO of Loob Holding, told A+M that the Philippines is its first market entry together with its new private equity partner Creador. "Filipinos are, no doubt, huge lovers of milk tea products in Southeast Asia. Together with Creador's extensive local resources in the Philippines, we decided to enter this market to build the next well-loved homegrown milk tea brand. He said:

Our vision is to expand 30 outlets by the end of 2022 and double our store count every other year.

KL Foodie

An additional note is that the current CEO of Tealive is Malaysian actor Ahmad Fikry Ibrahim (left of Loo). Loo mentions the reason why Ibrahim has become part of the Malaysian Tealive family:

“Tealive is home-grown and a proudly Malaysian brand which has spread to nine countries across five continents, serving over five million customers each month,” he said.

“We welcome Fikry to helm the role of Tealive CEO for our coffee campaign. He has also grown from his early days of Lawak Solo to be a wholesome family-oriented and happy-go-lucky celebrity adored by millions of fans,” he added.

“Fikry’s enthusiasm for the Tealive brand is amazing. So, together, we will have much joy and fun serving more coffee throughout Malaysia,” he quipped. 

I find this to be an interesting mix. Taiwanese milk tea found itself expanding in the Philippines. Taiwan's aboriginal tribes have very similar naming to the Philippines' aborigine tribes. In short, the links between Taiwan and the Philippines are closer than you think. I even wrote an article where I pointed to the similarities between Taiwanese natives and Filipino natives. I also wrote an article where I believe that many Asian indigenous groups are from Malaysia. A Malay CEO with brown skin would help Filipinos reconnect. Loo also saw the potential of the Philippines' milk tea population while retaining the use of halal-certified ingredients in Malaysia.

Now, the company is hitting large in Southeast Asia. Going to the Philippines has been a wise move since it's also part of the ASEAN country. I see that the Philippines can learn from Malaysia since both are related closely than one thinks. 

Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

The Great Reversal: Democratic Philippines Became MORE Dependent on COMMUNIST Vietnam for Rice

Bao Thanh Nien On January 24, 2026, I read from the Philippine Star Facebook page  that a vendor from Baseco, Tondo, is selling Vietnamese rice at PHP 20.00 per kilo. Honestly, it made me laugh over President Ferdinand "Bongbong" R. Marcos Jr.'s promise. Was this rice from Vietnam a rice surplus if it wasn't premium rice? My experience with rice selling was with wholesale,  and it was a very different time. What I learned in the late 2000s to 2012 may no longer be applicable today.  Taking a look back at the history of Vietnam and the Philippines before Doi Moi This time, I decided to go with history because a certain someone on Facebook (as always, I will not mention names as much as possible) has actually called it that the Philippines' dependency on Vietnam for rice, despite the International Rice Research Institute being actually located in Pili Drive, Los Baños, Laguna 4031, Philippines. This guy (whom I nickname Porky due to his obesity) I just mentioned, sp...
Read more

Teaching Mandarin by Recalling How Much Chinoy School Students Complained, "Hay, Chinese!"

It's time for a bit of Chinese language Throwback Thursday. I remember how the Chinese school can be summarized as students  memorizing without understanding . The problem wasn't the Lǎoshīs (老師) but the system that ran them as persons . I decided to write this article to " bring up a trauma " associated with the Chinese education system. From Kiko Chinese, this picture shows the common complaints from children. Standard Chinese is so hard! The Chinese schools tend to lose students because they keep failing in Grade 2 or Grade 2 in Chinese. In fact, I remember someone failing Chinese four times back in the 1990s. Another one was three years in Grade 3 Chinese, where the Chinese teacher was even stricter than the Grade 2 Chinese teacher. The real issue was that there wasn't any real learning because the old traditional Chinese system wasn't doing anything right . People were treated as if Hokkien were their first language. However, we realize that people can...
Read more

Opening #SahodItaasPresyoIbaba Stores Nationwide Increases POGO-Related Risks (NOT FDI)

Alice Guo aka Guo Hua-Ping may be in jail now . However, I believe the saga is far from over . It reminds me that I actually wrote about how several idiots on Facebook go so far as to say, " Alice Guo should be a warning about open FDI! " Some have even gone as far as to say that POGO and Chinese spies should "justify" the Filipino First Policy . However, the harsher reality is that the Filipino First Policy may actually be encouraging dummy investors instead ! As the saga continues, I've decided to write what I might call my harshest entry yet. It's going to be Chinese New Year this year. This might be an entry that may need to be shared before the Lunar New Year! My grievances are  still ongoing because some people still demand #SahodItaasPresyoIbaba, no matter how destructive it  will be . That's why I use Venezuela as an example, especially during Nicolas Maduro's downfall . Back to the topic, I remember writing a joke post where I said, "Wh...
Read more

Indonesia's Masarang Foundation Proves that FDI Can Greatly Help Local Philippine Agriculture

As I've sipped two glasses of Tealive's Aren Caramel (read here )--I was tempted to research more on palm sugar from the Arenga tree. Arenga bears the fruit that Filipinos call kaong and Indonesians call kolang kaling. As a Filipino, I prefer to call it the Kaong Tree or Punuan ng Kaong. This video is from Masarang, Indonesia. Masarang in Tagalog means strong. If the Indonesian word means strong as well--this is a very strong foundation. The research on palm sugar landed me in the organization called Yayasan Masarang or Masarang Foundation. The video I just shared shows the struggle of palm tappers and how FDI can help in learning environmentally-friendly practices.  The late Lee Kuan Yew even published in his book From Third World to First about greening Singapore. The pernicious myth that's spread around is that Singapore supposedly only opened to FDI due to lack of natural resources . However, other countries rich in natural resources like Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, Chi...
Read more

The Philippines will NEVER Get Richer by Blaming Its Richer Asian Neighbors

Gemini AI Updated: September 27, 2025 It would be nice to talk about the typical blame game in the Philippines. I could remember that, as a child and a teenager, I had this habit of blaming people I disliked for my failing an exam. The reasons are mostly imagined. What I remembered in my later college years was when I met a couple of super irresponsible students. They had this attitude to say something like, "My parents don't care if it'll take me 20 years to finish my bachelor's degree." Some people even say something like, "It's the fault of the rich that we are poor." It was a backfire when I told such people, "Isn't it any wonder why your finances are down? It's because your parents don't even value the money when they don't care if it'll take up to 20 years to finish college!"  Understanding the blame game and why it feels so good Psychology Today presents this on why some people will always blame others . These fin...
Read more