Sips, Stories, and the Spirit of the Forest: A Taste of Sustainability in La Mesa Ecopark

Not Your Typical Easter Morning

Easter Sunday usually brings to mind church bells, egg hunts, or a late brunch with family. But this year, a handful of us traded our pastel-colored plans for something earthier: Feast from the Forest, a unique eco-educational tour inside La Mesa Ecopark, hosted by MAD Travel.

Fancy a sipping on local teas or coffee while munching on roasted cashews harvested from Lahar soil? Well, that's what we enjoyed during the Feast from the Forest at La Mesa Ecopark last Easter Sunday. :) Such a great experience!

What awaited us wasn’t just food—but the kind of experience that stays with you, long after the plates are cleared.

MAD Travel's Raf Dionisio telling us the origins of the ingredients in the event's feast.

Nature on the Table

We gathered inside the activity hall of the park, where co-founder Raf Dionisio welcomed us with stories of origin—not just of the tour, but of the ingredients themselves. Most came from reforested and indigenous-supported communities like Yangil in Zambales, and others from different forest-front communities in Luzon.

We sampled three teas:

• Mango leaf tea, bold and earthy

• Banaba tea, subtle and detoxifying

• Bamboo leaf tea, smooth and almost grassy—my personal favorite

Next came Philippine single-origin coffee, a rare blend of Arabica, Robusta, and Liberica beans. Every sip spoke of elevation and effort, carefully grown and harvested by farmers reclaiming degraded lands.

To pair: local cacao from @thecacaoprojectph, roasted cashews from the volcanic soils of Bataan, and raw wild honey from bees that foraged among native blooms in the Sierra Madre and Bataan Peninsula.

Did you know? Honey never spoils. Archeologists have uncovered 3,000-year-old honey pots in Egyptian tombs that are still edible. It’s nature’s eternal sweetener.

Forest School, But Tastier

After the feast, we followed Anjo of MAD Travel through La Mesa’s shaded forest trail. We met the quiet elders of the forest—Molave, Narra, Antipolo, Namio, and Pili trees—and learned how the forest grows not in haste, but in harmony.

One curious character? The balete, a tree that climbs and eventually “devours” its host trunk to gain access to sunlight. Nature, as we learned, has its own clever (sometimes brutal) logic.

A Delicious Reminder to Protect What’s Ours

We closed our morning with a hearty local lunch and a few take-home finds: zapote and turmeric salted eggs from small vendors like Ruri, new friends, and a deeper appreciation of what it means to eat locally—and consciously.

It was more than a tasting tour. It was an invitation to reconnect with the land and those who care for it, and a tangible way to support regenerative agriculture and sustainable food systems in the Philippines.