Daniel Matsunaga: Good looks, great body & Great Taste

Coffee, tea or me?” Daniel Matsunaga, actor, model, host, singer, rockstar, teases his audience in the packed ballroom of Crowne Plaza in Ortigas Center.

But of course, Daniel Matsunaga is the hands-down choice.  Armed with good looks and great abs to match, the six-foot-tall Brapanese (his mom is Brazilian while his dad is Japanese) is a certified hottie.  And this humid afternoon, we get to enjoy some time with Daniel (but more on him a wee bit later) over mug after mug after mug of coffee.

After all, we’re all gathered here to celebrate great coffee with great company — and great prizes.

“Yes, Great Taste has been around for generations,” says Lance Gokongwei,  president/CEO of Universal Robina Corporation (URC). “We’re very proud of the fact that the Great Taste brand represents the best and most innovative coffee in the Philippines. It was the first granulated coffee on the market, likewise the first to introduce 3-in-1 coffee in the Philippines to give a lot of convenience to the public. It was the first to introduce resealable pouches (to lock in freshness) to provide a lot of value and savings to consumers as well as the BigSave packs. Finally, we’re very proud of the current innovation we produced, which is the Great Taste White. Great Taste White is the first creamy coffee in the Philippines because we noticed that a lot of consumers, particularly young Filipinos, are very interested in coffee, especially with the growth of coffee shops in the Philippines.”

And how did the market accept Great Taste White?

“The market responded extremely well as we noted that Great Taste is the most popular Philippine brand among the top 10 brands and a lot of this was driven by Great Taste White, which is really a phenomenon as it attracted a lot of first-time users to the coffee market as they enjoyed the wonderful combination of coffee as well as its creaminess,” Lance reveals.

“We’re constantly in search of innovative products, we always want to deliver a new experience,” discloses Nilo Mapa, executive vice president and managing director, URC Branded Consumer Foods Group. “As Lance mentioned, Great Taste is known for many firsts. If you look at our Big Pack, it’s a very technically complicated product because in one granule, you’ll have the coffee, the cream, and the sugar. Because of the weight of the coffee, the cream, and the sugar, if you don’t put them in a single granule, they will separate.”

Amid cheers and screams, Lance makes this great announcement, “So we came up with this promo to thank our supporters and Great Taste lovers out there.”

What’s so great about this promo? A lot! Read this: Choose Great, Win Great raffle is so far the biggest promo activity of Great Taste, with more than P27-million worth of prizes at stake nationwide. There will be four regional draws in five areas: Greater Manila Area (GMA), North Luzon, South Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. Every regional draw will have one winner of P200,000 and one winner of P100,000 in each area. There will also be two winners who will get their very own white MacBook Air, four winners of a white iPhone, and six winners of a white iPad Mini.

The grand draw will have one lucky winner who will bring home P3 million in cash while eight other winners will each drive home a white Toyota Vios 1.3 E M/T. More, the grand prize winner will have that great Pinoy Big Brother experience as he/she gets to tour the PBB House, meet and greet PBB: All In Big Winner Daniel Matsunaga, and get VIP tickets to the PBB: 737 Big Night.

Here are the promo mechanics: The Great Taste White: Choose Great, Win Great promo is open to all Filipino residents, 18 years old and above. To join, simply collect five empty sachets of any Great Taste  White variant (Smooth & Creamy, Sugarfree, Smooth & Caramelly, and Smooth & Chocolatey) or one emply BigSave Pack. Put the empty packs in a plain white envelope with a piece of paper containing your complete name, birth date, current mailing address, mobile or landline number, store outlet where the product was purchased, and email address (if you have one). One envelope is equivalent to one entry, which can be dropped at drop boxes located in participating stores, supermarkets, and outlets nationwide. Promo runs from Aug. 2 to Sept. 18. For more details, like the official Great Taste White Facebook page (@GreatTaste3in1). So, next time you take your Great Taste White coffee, don’t forget to save those pouches — you may just be a coffee drink away from becoming a multimillionaire (P3 million to be exact).

So, how does Daniel like his coffee?

“I like it creamy (as in the original Smooth & Creamy Great Taste White), in powder form without adding water,” Daniel tells his amazed audience. “It’s like candy, sarap!”

Daniel has fallen deeply in love with our coffee that he won’t trade it even for the finest Brazilian coffee back home.

He often enjoys a cup or two (or three) of his favorite coffee with his favorite leading lady and girlfriend Erich Gonzales. “From my coffee to my girlfriend, my taste is Filipino,” he swears with an impish smile.

He relates, “Next week, Erich and I will start shooting our new TV drama Be My Lady, which is about a foreigner who falls for a Filipina. It’s similar to our story.”

Daniel shares more coffee tales: “At the Pinoy Big Brother House, we survived on coffee (provided by the sponsor Great Taste). Every day, I would mix our coffee, put milk and mashed bananas — we were each given a banana every day. Then I would put this in the freezer and we would have ice cream the next morning.”

According to Daniel, PBB taught him how to care for others more than himself, to be humble, down-to-earth, and to be a better person. “Every day, there’s a lesson to be learned and the more you stay in the House, the better you will be. I stayed there for four months.”

Daniel joins us — some sleepy-eyed media people in dire need of a caffeine fix (he later confesses he had six cups while waiting to be called on stage) — at our table and talk shifts from great coffee to the actor’s great abs. “I work out a lot, play football, go to the gym every day, as much as possible,” he enumerates his physical regimen.

But Daniel tells us he doesn’t have to go to the gym to keep fit. “I can do it at home, anywhere, even here — the sit-ups and pushups. I don’t have a trainer now, but I can do it on my own because of what I’ve learned from friends and my personal trainers before.”

He’s always maintained his 82-kilo trim and slim frame. His diet consists of a lot of fruits for breakfast, granola, cereals (not the sugary kind), and a lot of meat. “But I avoid pork as much as possible because of the fat. If I’m on a diet, I just eat chicken breast that’s not fried.”

Thank God (and his genes), says Daniel, he doesn’t have to use steroids (as some athletes do) and has had no big weight issues. “You should recognize your body. When you overeat and see yourself in the mirror, you ask yourself, ‘What happened?’”

Daniel doesn’t believe in crash diets or no-carb diets. Luckily, if he binges, he can always burn the fat through some cardio workouts, which he strongly suggests to those who want to lower their body fat percentage and build muscle.

Daniel runs a food delivery business called The Healthy House. “We deliver five meals a day. These are healthy meals that I myself subscribe to. Check out our Instagram @TheHealthyHousePH.”

For Daniel, it’s a great life, and he’s smelling his coffee and enjoying it.