Kuya Ramon carries two aluminium buckets on a bamboo pole: warm silken tofu in one, arnibal syrup and sago pearls in the other. He leaves the supplier in Marikina at 5:30 and walks until the buckets are empty.
The call carries a full street ahead of him, and doors open before he arrives. Children bring their own cups. An old man on Bayan-Bayanan Avenue has bought a cup every morning for, by his count, eleven years.
“If I’m late, they wait. If I’m early, they’re not awake.”
How taho is made
The tofu is made overnight at a small supplier near the market: soybeans soaked, ground, boiled and set in large aluminium pans. The arnibal is brown sugar melted with a little vanilla, and the sago pearls are cooked in batches before dawn.
Vendors collect their buckets between five and six. Each walks a route they have kept for years, usually close to where they live, and each route has its own rhythm of schools, houses and offices.
Kuya Ramon’s route has changed only twice in fifteen years: once when a school moved and once when a new subdivision opened near the river. Both times his customers followed him.
A shrinking trade
There are fewer taho vendors than there were twenty years ago. The work is early and hard on the shoulders, and younger people find better-paid jobs elsewhere. Some vendors now use bicycles with a sidecar instead of the pole.
Kuya Ramon has no plans to switch. The pole keeps the buckets steady, he says, and walking keeps him healthy. His knees disagree on rainy mornings, but he has not missed a weekday in three years.
If you hear the call, open the door. The cup is warm, sweet and gone in a minute.
By nine the buckets are light and the route ends near the river. A cup costs ₱20, slightly more than last year.
