Bacha Coffee, the Marrakech-born house run by Singapore's V3 Gourmet, opened its first Philippine cafes at SM Mall of Asia and Greenbelt 3 — and did so inside a wider Asian push that also reached Taipei and Shanghai.

A luxury coffee house that began in Marrakech in 1910 has arrived in the Philippines, and not quietly. Bacha Coffee — operated by the Singapore-based group V3 Gourmet — opened its first Metro Manila cafes at SM Mall of Asia in Pasay City and Greenbelt 3 in Makati City. Reported on October 21, the Manila debut arrived not on its own but as one leg of a coordinated, multi-city landing across Asia.

What makes this a bcd-W story is not that a cafe opened, but how a brand decided where to be seen. Each Manila outlet is built as three things at once — a Coffee Bar, a Coffee Boutique and a takeaway counter — and stocks more than 200 specialty coffees drawn from 100% Arabica beans sourced across 35 growing regions. That format, boutique plus bar, treats coffee less as a drink to grab than as a product to browse, and it is the same template the brand is planting city by city.

The Philippine opening came alongside a new roughly 92-square-metre store in Taipei, at Shin Kong Mitsukoshi's Nanxi store in the Zhongshan district, and a 390-square-metre Shanghai flagship at Taikoo Li Qiantan — the brand's second mainland China location after its first at Beijing's China World Mall — plus an official flagship on Tmall Luxury. Three cities, three first or flagship rooms, one expansion announced in a single breath.

This is W-Commerce in its clearest go-to-market form: a business moving into cities, and choosing which ones go first. The size mismatch is the interesting part — a heritage name from Marrakech, run out of Singapore, deciding in one stroke that Manila, Taipei and Shanghai all deserve a physical room in the same window. The unit of the decision is not the country but the city, and the shop window is the statement.

Luxury coffee is being retailed the way fashion is — as a destination with a boutique to browse, not a counter to queue at — and Asia's mega-malls are the landing pads. A brand that can open in three cities at once, each in a flagship mall, is treating simultaneous multi-city entry as a template rather than a sequence. Watch whether the next heritage F&B name copies the move: land in several Asian cities together, so the arrival reads as a region entered, not a store opened.

Where did Bacha Coffee open in Manila? At SM Mall of Asia in Pasay City and Greenbelt 3 in Makati City — its first cafes in the Philippines, reported on October 21, 2026.

What is Bacha Coffee? A luxury coffee house founded in Marrakech in 1910 and operated by Singapore's V3 Gourmet, serving more than 200 specialty coffees from 100% Arabica beans across 35 regions, in a Coffee Bar plus Coffee Boutique format.

Which other Asian cities did it enter? Taipei (Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Nanxi) and Shanghai (a 390 sqm flagship at Taikoo Li Qiantan, after its first mainland store in Beijing), plus an online flagship on Tmall Luxury.

Draft — bcd-W News Team. Web-only; not published. Pending editor review. Store locations and sizes are drawn from trade press; confirm exact addresses and opening dates per city before publication.