Kuya Jay’s Ube Kafe

Kuya Jay’s is serving some of the best lattes and sweet treats in the Boston area. Each week they cycle between delicious Filipino treats like Biko cups, ube rice crispy treats, and ensaymada and they are inventive with their cold foam flavors like banana, pandan, and, of course, ube. The owners are absolute treasures and are constantly doing outreach work to help the Filipino and Asian community. They have fantastic ideas to bring back night markets, djs to cafes, and even have books dedicated to learning Tagalog and learning about Filipinos in the Boston area in their cafe for customers to read. They have also catered full lechons to our holiday party and make delicious traditional Filipino dishes. Their Lola’s pancit recipe is excellent. The vibe inside the cafe is clean, bright, and homey with awesome purple and gold decor. They were unfairly shut down by the city for serving sweet buns that the city called a sandwich and said violated their sweet treat food license. Come out and support these amazing locals!!!

I walked in on a Sunday morning to try Kuya Jay's Ube Kafe and had a great time. I ordered ube milk tea and large ube sweet rolls and it was a tasty breakfast. The staff were extremely friendly the space has a cool purple vibe. Highly recommend checking it out.

Fun spot to try everything ube. Saw this cafe pop up inside one of the new office buildings nearby. Bright and spacious seating area, and the cafe wasn’t too crowded on my past two visits. Most of their drinks were centered on ube. As someone who loves ube, I was excited, but the flavors were fairly weak. They clearly avoided the syrupy-sweet shortcut, which I respect, but the natural ube presence wasn’t enough in most drinks. In the latte, coffee drowned it out completely, and the ube milk was more like a lightly sweetened milk. Ube matcha was the most decent, but it was mostly due to the caramelized banana foam I added. Thankfully, the food was great. One of the owners is Filipino, so dishes like the longganisa sausage were perfectly executed, and the ube waffles were genuinely satisfying. Would return for the food, but unless the drinks get dialed up, I probably wouldn’t give them another shot.

My sister and I got a halo halo and the ube matcha. Both were delicious - balanced, fragrant, and of course most importantly, not too sweet! The ingredients and flavors were respected and therefore my stomach was respected. Also, they have savory food. I had a whole meal!

Went on a Saturday. Pretty disappointed unfortunately, had to wait 30-40mins for a scoop of rice and lupia. They did make it better by giving us our food for free. It was frustrating because Menu isent accurate. Pretty disorganized. Purple fingers. I hope they can get organized soon. No hot coffee, no marshmallow like the menu says. The cookie sandwhich is a like a trader joes Ube Joe Joe, but $3. Same with the sweet bun (see pics) Hawaiian bun with ube plop. I was hoping for a little more homemade food. Coffee was ok couldn't taste the ube and coffee was watery and lupia was really good just not worth the wait. They did have sweet chili sauce and soy sauce for dipping.