Tubho is the traditional tea of the Ivatan people in Batanes, the northernmost island province of the Philippines, which is also the smallest province, both in terms of population and land area. The province is hilly and mountainous with the islands sparsely populated and subject to frequent typhoons. The province comprises ten islands that are located in the Luzon Strait between the Babuyan Islands (belonging to Cagayan Province) and Taiwan. The three largest islands, Batan, Itbayat, and Sabtang, are the only inhabited islands.
The tubho plant grows wild in the Batanes landscape and is part of the local food custom of the local people. Not much literature is written about this plant and only the dried product, as tea can be found for widespread sale. The tubho leaves are harvested from the plant when it is mature and already dried. Local people say that this is done so the tea does not taste bitter. To make a cup, they simply snap off a dried leafy stem and boil it until the water turns brown. It tastes very mild and is usually served by the locals with brown sugar. As an endemic plant harvested from mountainous areas, there are no known commercial plantings of tubho. Although some dried plants are sold as tea, this is only in small quantities as part of the pasalubong or souvenier products for tourists, and therefore is mainly sold in tourist destination area of the island group.
Tubho is a traditional tea that can be found only in the northernmost part of the Philippines. Unlike its other Asian counterparts, Filipinos are not traditionally tea drinkers a part from in this area. Nowadays, the popularity of teas among younger generations in urban areas of the Philippines is due to the franchised commercial milk tea products that hail from other countries. The level of awareness about the benefits and value of traditional products like tubho as tea is very low, and tourism efforts in the Philippines are usually linked only to sites or places of interest and not really about the culture that is linked to traditional food.
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