With all the newly-opened dessert places, of course it is a matter of time until a store specializing in sponge cake finally opens. In Indonesia, sponge cakes are very widely used for the base of decorated cakes, so it’s not an exaggerating statement to say that they are quite popular. From this thought, 3 masterminds behind Tea Companion, David Tambunan, Reza & Astri Sungkono, opened its store few months ago in Kemang, offers wide array of sponge cakes with pretty and luxurious decorations, complete with Twinings tea selection to accompany your sweet desserts.
The place is not big, in fact, it’s very small, and as this post is published, they don’t have any signboard yet. If you are around Kemang Utara street, look out for the big banner of BarberSixx, a barber shop that has just opened recently. I was quite lost looking for this shop, but just look for a place with spacious parking area. Tea Companion is located on the most left side, with fancy-looking Victorian seatings. Although the shop itself is very small (there’s only a long glass display in the middle, and there is not even a kitchen), they provide few chairs to dine in, because seriously, the main seating area which is located outdoor is very hot and I didn’t find it so comfortable, to be honest.
Currently, there is no kitchen in the store, means that all cakes are made in main kitchen in Jalan Subang No. 14, Menteng (Central Jakarta). According to the staff that we met, after the cakes are ready, they are sent to Kemang shop then decorated and assembled there. There are 7 signature cakes from Tea Companion, which fortunately were available during my visit so I tried all of them. Without further ado, let’s check them out!
Snowy Fruit Cake IDR 25.5K
This cake looks just like regular sponge cake with succade, added with icing sugar sprinkled on top. The taste was quite nice, fruity with strong hint of butter, it’s probably better to be enjoyed with bitter tea or coffee to balance the buttery taste.
Triple Classic IDR 29.5K
This attracted my eyes immediately when I browsed through the glass display. The layered cakes, the fresh strawberries, the simple white cream, and the writing that tells it contains rum, everything just intrigued me so much. It turned out to be good, although the rum wasn’t exactly strong but I could taste it.
Chocolate Mountain IDR 30K
Meet my favorite cake! The chocolate mountain didn’t disappoint although it looks the most bland, ugliest and most unattractive amongst all of those cakes! The chocolate was very rich but almost felt like it was poured down, so generously spread all over the cake. To make it even better, it was more into dark chocolate rather than milk one, so it was not overwhelming and gave headache to me, LOL.
Green Tea Meet Chocolate IDR 23.5K
This was quite good too with decent taste of green tea, nice bitterness but well-balanced with the sweetness of additional part of chocolate. The design was also quite pretty so this is totally recommended, especially for green tea lovers!
Strawberry Delight IDR 24K
This was the most beautiful cake amongst 7 of them and it was my first choice in term of presentation. Everything just looks so good especially the nicely-put strawberries in the cream.
Peanut Addiction IDR 24K
Another nice creation, another favorite with peanut butter spread all over the cake. It was simply addictive.
Royal Banana Cake IDR 23.5K
Banana cake is one of my favorite cakes, and I had high hope for this one thanks to its beautiful, luxurious presentation. The banana cake turned out to be good, with rich cream cheese on top added with raisins, it was sweet and lovely.
Twinings Tea IDR 20K
I tried the Four Red Fruits Tea and another kind was Passion Fruit, Mango & Orange Tea. The four red fruits tea was absolutely delicious, very fruity and fragrant, typical berries-based drinks. The other one was very citrusy but honestly, I didn’t really like it because of its overly-strong taste of passion fruit, so mango and orange were overkilled. And somehow it tasted like lipstick, LOL!
Although mostly all of these cakes tasted good, I am not really a fan of the textures of the cakes. I expected my sponge cakes to be soft, moist and smooth, while here I found almost all of the cakes were kind of hard, dry and kind of difficult to swallow. Except some of the covered-ones like Chocolate Mountain or Peanut Addiction, the others were dry even just by looking at them. Maybe the delivery system explains why the textures are like that, but I certainly wish that they can improve on that.
Oh yes, if you buy the cakes for take away, you can get fancy collectible cake boxes. There are total of 6 different designs, and the boxes are very cute, with daily household equipments inspired designs, such as TV, radio, oven, etc. Although the boxes are very nice, I think they are too big for the small cakes and when I got home, my cakes were totally in bad conditions because of too much empty spaces in the boxes -___-;;
Despite of some disappointments I wrote above, I still find their cakes amusing in term of presentations and taste, because I really like some of them. And the fact that their cakes are NOT too sweet is a very nice thing because at least I don’t need to feel too afraid being diabetic after grabbing the cakes. In conclusion, it’s still a very nice cake shop to try and I am sure you’ll have good dessert time! Best of luck, Tea Companion, hopefully I can come back again to try better texture!
Opening Hours: Mon-Sun 10.00 – 20.00
No Comment