August 9th, 2016 — Food
With Mid-Autumn Nights just around the corner, TWG Tea reveals a unique assortment of lavish jewel treats to add a touch of shine and glamour to the traditional festive moonlit reunions, or more commonly known in the Philippines as the Mooncake Festival!
A Celestial Treat for Your Festive Mid-Autumn Nights
The showstopper of the TWG Tea collection begins with the Festive Night Tea, signifying the beginning of many radiant celebrations in a brilliant orange.
Accompanied by an exquisite ensemble of eight delectable traditional and snowskin mooncakes, TWG Tea rises to the occasion with five new tempting flavours this season to delight the senses and palate. Perfectly paired with Festive Night Tea, the green tea blends with notes of cherry blossom and a sweet aroma of red fruits and rose petals.
TWG Tea Traditional Mooncake in Single Box
TWG Tea Traditional Mooncakes
Expanding the collection of traditional mooncakes, TWG Tea shines above and beyond with three new flavours. Encased in a rich chocolate brown crust, the Jewel mooncake boasts a rich chocolate crust and a luxurious dark chocolate centre surrounded by Paris-Singapore Tea infused white lotus paste and Amarena cherries.
Add a touch of decadence to your festivities with the remarkable red Ruby mooncake, featuring Ivory Palace Tea infused lotus paste scattered with lemon zest and dried mango, encapsulating a fragrant kaffir lime and almond paste heart. Embracing the vast heavens, Midnight mooncake captures the essence of the universe in a stunning jetblack crust, enveloping an aromatic almond paste centre with crunchy blackcurrants and Blue Lotus Tea infused white lotus paste and dried cranberries.
- Constellation: This iconic signature of the mid-autumn festival holds within a golden crust a smooth and elegant Singapore Breakfast Tea infused brown lotus filling, a scattering of roasted melon seeds and an embedded salted egg yolk heart. A timeless favourite.
- Jewel: Encased in a rich chocolate brown crust, this exclusive TWG Tea mooncake boasts a luxurious dark chocolate orb surrounded by a white lotus paste scattered with decadent Amarena cherry chunks and infused with Paris-Singapore Tea.
- Ruby: Wrapped in a perfectly baked bold red crust, this surprising TWG Tea mooncake features lemon zest and dried mango chunks in an Ivory Palace Tea infused brown lotus paste contrasted by a unique kaffir lime and almond paste heart.
- Midnight: Wrapped in a sumptuous baked crust as dark as the night, this exclusive TWG Tea mooncake showcases an aromatic almond paste centre with crunchy blackcurrants cradled by a white lotus paste infused with Blue Lotus Tea and scattered with dried cranberries.
TWG Tea Snowskin Mooncake in Quattro Box
TWG Tea Snowskin Mooncakes
As graceful as the appearance of constellations in the vast night sky, TWG Tea unveils a delicate collection of four snowskin mooncakes for 2016.
Uniquely handcrafted, the new Flame snowskin mooncake radiates in brilliant orange embellished with a precious gold leaf, capturing a Festive Night Tea infused citrus mousseline and a heart of cherry ganache. Another illustrious gem to join the collection is the new Jade mooncake, decked in a celadon skin enveloping a Sencha infused mousse, ornamented with chocolate crumble pieces and a milk chocolate ganache centre.
A set of four Mooncakes retails at Php 1,840 for Traditional and Php 2,140 for Snowskin. Individual mooncake gift boxes retail at Php 475 for Traditional and Php 550 for Snowskin (available at all TWG Tea Salons & Boutiques in the Philippines; prices may vary in Cebu).
- Flame: Emanating the warm glow of a lantern, a brilliant orange snowskin mooncake embellished with a precious gold leaf, conceals a Festive Night Tea infused citrus mousseline that cradles a lavish heart of cherry ganache.
- Jade: Decked in a skin of creamy celadon, this grand mooncake features a lustrous Sencha infused mousse ornamented with chocolate crumble pieces encasing a milk chocolate ganache centre.
- Pure: An ethereal satin white snowskin mooncake encases a smooth dark chocolate mousse inflected with the fruity and flowery notes of 1837 White Tea, revealing a heart of tangy blackcurrant marmalade and white chocolate.
- Illumination: Concealed in a black snowskin, this exquisite mooncake reveals a brilliant composition of a light, nutty praline infused with 1837 Black Tea and an oriental burst of glowing orange marmalade in a white chocolate heart.
TWG Tea Snowskin Mooncake in Single Box
Enjoy these treats and TWG Tea Mooncakes to celebrate the upcoming MoonCake Festival! Let families gather around the tea table as sweet notes of lotus and candied treats fill the air.
September 22nd, 2010 — Affairs, Cravings, Dessert, Hotels, Maxims Hotel, Newport City, Pasay, Promos / Events, Resorts World Compound, Restaurants, Where To Eat
Coming from a Chinese family myself, the traditional mid-autumn celebration of Chinese Mooncake Festival is celebrated in at least some way or the other. In previous years, we did play the traditional Mooncake dice game with prizes among family members.
Chinese Mooncake Festival
Although, we won’t be having one this year, it is comforting to know that the Mooncake tradition is still alive in most Chinese communities.
“With a delicious tradition rich in history, the festival is strongly associated with the Moon Goddess of Immortality. It also represents the time of the year when the moon is at its fullest and marks the end of the harvest. It is traditionally celebrated with dances, moon viewing parties, and of course, partaking of mooncakes.“
Like in Resorts World Manila (RWM) in Newport (Pasay City), the next three days’ celebrations focuse on the Chinese culture surrounding the Mooncake Festival. They have actually started these since last month with the Mooncake redemption promo. Casino slot machine players may use points earned from August 22 to September 24 to take home up to three mooncakes a day. 200 Mooncakes are available for redemption throughout the promo period.
Moncake Festival at the Resorts World Manila - Maxims Hotel
Mooncake Promo Mechanics (Clikc to Enlarge)
From September 22 to 24, Resorts World Manila will also be rewarding cakes and tea at its Mooncake and High Tea mini-buffet for only 18 points. There would also be a daily Mooncake Raffle with 12 electronic raffle draws will be held each day from 3:00 p.m. to 11:15 p.m. at certain intervals. With four varieties of moon cake in each box, Mooncakes will also available for sale at Resorts World Manila’s Passion Restaurant.
Enjoy the Mooncake Festival with the Chinese and non-Chinese communities alike at the Resorts World Manila from Sept 22-24. For inquiries, you may call (632) 836-6333 or visit www.rwmanila.com.
October 4th, 2009 — Affairs, Appetizer, Cravings, Dessert, Promos / Events
Here in the Philippines, the Chinese community is usually in a festive mood even a week before the Chinese Mooncake Festival. But this year, I hardly saw mooncake in our dining table.
October 3 passed just like any usual Saturday.
Aside from the given economic crunch, the gloomy atmosphere is part of the recovery phase from the recent typhoon Ondoy.
Nonetheless, that doesn’t stop this food blog from sharing a bite from the Chinese’s Mooncake Festival culture.
The Mooncake Festival, also referred to as the Mid-Autumn Festival, marks the end of a good harvest season for the farmers.
Regarded as a legal holiday by the Chinese, it is annually held on the fifteenth day of the eighth month of the Chinese calendar. This year, it fell on an early October on our local calendar.
Wikipedia.org describes it as
“…a date that parallels the autumn and spring Equinoxes of the solar calendar“
The festivity references to the ‘moon’ in the famous Chinese pastry in festivals – the ‘Mooncake‘. The Chinese term is pronounced as “yuèbÄng” with a literal English translation of “Moon biscuit“. Generally about the size of a palm and half way thick. Dense, heavy and regularly rounded. Sweet in taste and at about Php 60 a piece, fillings vary from ordinary mongo to the premium lotus seed paste. It’s never a real mooncake without the egg yolk inside symbolizing the full moon.
Last Year’s Mooncake Festival
Last year, we ate out at a Chinese restaurant and played the traditional Mooncake Festival Dice Game after meal. Yes, at the restaurant; they allowed us. 🙂
The Mooncake Festival Dice Game is characterized by a group of people surrounding a round table throwing 6 dice in a glass bowl. The players take turns. Each numeric and die-color combination results has corresponding values with all-four dice (all six dice has the mark of four red dots in each) as the highest.
Prizes are traditionally mooncakes and hopia while more affluent families give away bigger prizes or ampao (cash in red envelopes).
I remember during that time last year, it was the height of the the melamine issue. Despite that, we still used hopia. We just made sure we got it from a credible melamine-free source.
* Mooncake image and some info sourced from Wikipedia.
All our relatives enjoyed the Chinese Mooncake Festival. Hopefully, we could have a repeat of that next year.