The Elusive Ube Latte

One afternoon spent doom scrolling on Tiktok, I found a video showcasing a new cafe in Cambridge Massachusetts that was ube themed. The video showed cinematic shots of the ube flavored drinks and desserts they offer and it had me wanting to try every sip and bite alongside the creator. One such drink was the classic ube Latte, a coffee flavor which I had never tried before. The cafe was called "Kuya Jays" and was near public transit (and also my favorite parking spot on Main st). I immediately added the cafe to my bucketlist using the app Mapstr, I like to collect cafes/restaurants and other locations I want to visit like the Thanos infinity stones. 

Like anything I add to the Mapstr app, it sat on my "to try" list for months and much to my despair when I decided to go visit, it had closed to move to a new location in Somerville. Another few months passed and I went onto their Instagram to check if they had opened their new location yet and once again, much to my despair they were closed due to a licensing issue. 

The new year arrived and I thought third time is the charm right? I checked online and everything appeared to be good, they had recent posts on their Instagram indicating it was open and friends were posting videos of visiting the cafe on their stories. So with optimism I began my journey from my apartment, parked near the Medford/Tufts subway station and traveled down to Gilman Square. From there it was just a short walk, but in 20F with gale force winds, it was a brisk one. I was determined to get the ube latte so I carried on.

Thankfully despite the weather and the quick scare my phone gave me when apple maps said it was still "temporarily closed", I made it to the cafe and went in. The shop was small but held a nice aesthetic, and I was able to order a few of their ube desserts and the elusive ube latte. I tried a dipped cookie, a polvoron and an iced latte with ube cold foam. It was all I had hoped for, my favorite of the two desserts was the polvoron, it was a dense and crunchy cookie with nice hints of coconut and nutty flavors. The dipped cookie was good, the ube creme over the shortbread cookie had a subtle vanilla flavor and it reminded me a lot of a vanilla oreo. Last but not least, the ube latte was amazing, there were notes of vanilla and nutty flavors that came through, it was not overly sweet or earthy in taste and the foam was fantastic. One thing is for certain, I want to go back and try more items from their menu, ube may be a new fave flavor for me :)