Photo from Third Culture Bakery
Asian American and LGBTQ+ owned Third Culture Bakery has opened in a new location in Denver, Colorado. Chef Sam Butarbutar and Wenter Shyu are the owners of the bakery. The two met and fell in love in Berkeley, California, according to the Third Culture Bakery website. The bakery features pastries inspired by their childhood in Indonesia and Taiwan.
Third culture refers to the mixed identity an individual takes on from their parent’s culture and the environment they grew up in. The foods and drinks on the menu drew inspiration from their upbringing as children who grew up in a different culture than their parents.
The Third Culture Bakery menu features gluten free mochi muffins, butter mochi donuts, matcha lattes and more. A farm in Japan supplies the cafe with their matcha. Butarbutar told The Denver Post that the donuts are sweetened with Pandan sugar, which “grows in everyone’s backyards in Southeast Asia” and adds “a distinctive vanilla sweetness.”
The Third Culture Bakery commits a portion of its budgets every year to give back to local nonprofits and other organizations. These organizations include The Trevor Project, 1951, Berkeley Humane, SF LGBT Help Center, and the San Francisco Aids Foundation.
Due to the recent attacks on the AAPI community, Third Culture Bakery has started an initiative to assemble safety kits. The safety kits include pepper spray, alarm key chains, and more. The instructions for the safety kit have been translated into multiple languages including Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Spanish and more.
Colorado residents can visit the Third Culture Bakery’s new location at 2500 Lawrence Street #200 Denver, CO. The bakery also offers curbside pickup.
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