"Offers a range of top-brand items.."
Third Culture Bakery's distinctive Original Mochi Muffin, butter mochi doughnuts, and other beverages and delights were inspired by the founders' upbringing in a different cultural setting from their parents. In 2016, Chef Sam Butabutar and Wenter Shyu launched the bakery as a symbol of inclusiveness, diversity, and acceptance.
The Third Culture Bakery Story:
After falling in love, chef Sam Butarbutar and Wenter Shyu launched their bakery in 2016. Initially, they were the only workers, and only six wholesale coffee shops purchased their unique products.
The Mochi Muffin became an instant hit, and the bakery was able to hire its first employee one year after starting. By 2018, the company had expanded to more than sixty wholesale locations and employed more than twenty full-time bakers, delivery drivers, and retail employees.
Inspirational Source for Third Culture Bakery:
The bakery's distinctive products were inspired by the proprietors' passion for the sweets they ate in Indonesia and Taiwan as youngsters. The bakery's signature dish was inspired by an Indonesian delicacy his mother used to prepare.
The Items on the Menu Are:
Third Culture offers a variety of drinks and confections inspired by other cultures:
Mochi Muffins:
The Mochi Muffin is the item responsible for establishing Third Culture. In 2014, chef Sam Butarbutar created the muffin based on his mother's recipe for the traditional Indonesian dessert. He endeavoured to create a new item with the same cultural meaning and tenderness as the original.
The Mochi Muffin features a relatively crunchy exterior and a chewy interior, as well as brown butter, caramel, and coconut flavouring. The Mochi Muffin from Third Culture Bakery is made with mochiko rice flour from Koda Farms, coconut milk and pandan mixed in-house, and French-style butter. Including black and white Japanese sesame seeds gives the muffin its distinctive look.
Butter Mochi Donuts:
Third Star Bakery's butter mochi doughnuts are baked rather than fried to create the lightness of fried dough and the rich, chewy texture of butter mochi. In addition to the same mochiko rice flour and French-style butter used in the preparation of the Mochi Muffin, the butter mochi doughnut also contains local dairy milk.Third Culture's glazes use fresh fruits or other carefully sourced ingredients. For instance, the glaze on the bakery's renowned black sesame doughnuts is formed from stone-ground Japanese black sesame seeds.
Matcha:
Stone-ground green tea powder constitutes matcha. Third Culture's matcha is created from the first and second harvests of Uji sencha green tea leaves grown in Kyoto, Japan.
Third Culture's matcha has almost 130 times as many antioxidants as typical green teas or goji berries. In addition to providing a sense of serenity and tranquillity, it contains little caffeine. Third Culture delivers its matcha as a latte or sparkling matcha fruit infusion; both hand-whisked for maximum taste and enjoyment.
Mochi Brownies:
Third Culture Bakery makes mochi brownies with cocoa powder from the Bay Area chocolatier TCHO, mochiko rice flour, and butter in French fashion. These brownies are chewier than typical brownies and are enhanced with chocolate chips.
Contributing to the Community:
Third Culture, a business established by homosexual Asians, is about more than simply food. The company's founders, Wenter and Sam, have worked carefully to manufacture delicious pastries and spread a culture of affection. They want this love to extend beyond the doors of their enterprises to all underrepresented communities, proving that inclusiveness can be delicious and advantageous for all.Their activities, from making business decisions to creating new cuisine, are guided by love. The bakery reflects the family they've chosen and created, and they want every customer to join.
Each year, Culture Bakery donates a portion of its assets to organizations, including the Berkeley Humane Society, San Francisco AIDS Foundation, SF LGBT Center, The Trevor Project, and 1951 Coffee Company, a nonprofit that employs and trains refugees and asylum seekers while educating the community and building bridges. During the height of the pandemic, the bakery provided thousands of dollars to an LGBTQ and BIPOC emergency aid fund in the Bay Area.
Moreover, Third Culture Bakery created and distributed safety kits to avert a surge of violence and hatred towards Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. These kits feature pepper spray and key fobs with sound alarms. Winter and Sam received over 5,200 requests for these kits and have now delivered far more than 22,000 of them.