Sharetea

photo - Yelp, Hina M.

Sharetea, Inner Richmond, Snack
March 26, 2016

P:
Peach Green Milk Tea with Pearls

J:
Classic Green Milk Tea with Pearls


Notes:
I have a somewhat troubled history with bubble tea.  Bubble tea, aka boba tea, is a drink that originated in Taiwan and consists of tea and/or some other flavoring (from fruit juice to taro root to caramel, and more), often mixed with milk powder and sweetener and served over ice with large sweet black tapioca pearls and a fat straw.

The first time I heard of such a thing, I was so repulsed, I refused to even try it.  "Who wants to chew their beverage?  Disgusting," I thought.  The second time I was confronted with the drink, almost a decade later, the boss had a craving and there were enough of my colleagues on board with the idea that I'd be crazy not to try it (I work with people who know food).  Try it I did, and it was delicious.  Ice cold, sweet and milky with a strong green tea flavor and pleasantly chewy little balls of tapioca - how could I have ever thought so poorly of this concoction?

The third time, a few years later (obviously, I wasn't that in love with the drink), Patrick and I tried a place in our neighborhood.  It was awful.  The bubbles (tapioca) were hot, which melted the ice and watered down the drink, not to mention the mushy texture of the pearls, which I don't remember as pearls at all but instead little cubes of jelly.  Hot, mushy bits in my lukewarm milky tea drink?  Yuck.  P-tooey.  (Clearly, this continues to conjure a visceral reaction.)  So, needless to say, I never again got excited about bubble tea.  Patrick would suggest it from time to time, and I would simply change the subject, doing my best to avoid it altogether.

But on this beautiful Saturday afternoon, after a lovely breakfast, I had some laundry to do.  And not far from the laundromat, there is a bubble tea place that I've only ever seen packed with people since it opened about 2 years ago.  And earlier that day, Patrick had once again suggested bubble tea, heretofore unaware of my distaste for it.  And since he was tagging along while I did laundry (yeah, he's awesome), I decided it was time to stop the madness and just give it another try, already.

So try it, I did.  And it was delicious.  Ice cold, milky sweet with a strong tea flavor and slightly sweet, chewy tapioca pearls.  Patrick's was similar, but peach flavored.  YUM!

We're hooked and we want to try all the things (the "tea drink" world goes far beyond what I've described here).  This should make doing laundry much easier.