Bubble tea revisited
At first I thought it was many months ago but now I think it must be nearly a year ago I tried bubble tea for the second time. I’d tried it years ago in Fremantle and it was sickeningly sweet so ignored all the bubble tea being sold around town. The bubble tea shops were nowhere near us anyway. My first taste in recent times was at our local markets and I really liked it. Funny thing is I don’t even recall which flavor now as I have settled on kiwifruit as my favorite flavor.
I tried bubble tea at Utopia, which I believe is the first bubble tea specific shop around here. They have stores in several suburbs around Perth but all are at least a half hour drive away and mostly in places I don’t frequent. But they do have some nice flavors, my favorite being black lavender milk tea. I didn’t really understand the distinction at first but the black means black tea as opposed to green tea. I think you can get the non-milk variety of the tea but I’ve never tried it before. I have tried a couple other flavors on the few occasions when I am near Utopia but I’m stuck on my favorite.
Some of the local delis also sell bubble tea and one of those near us make a pretty decent one and another makes it way too sweet.
Enter Hi Tea, which opened in May in some local everyday markets. They had moved from Northbridge, the suburb adjacent to the city center, as their lease ran out and rents were too high there. I don’t know where they were located but more recently I have discovered about three shops within 200 meters of each other. I suspect Hi Tea must have been in this area too. I was excited about the new bubble tea shop located within reasonable distance in an area I’m likely to frequent. The reviews of Hi Tea from its previous location were almost unanimously giving it high praise as they use real fruits in their tea and don’t resort to powders. I tried the place out and was underwhelmed the first time as it didn’t taste at all like the lavender milk tea I had tasted elsewhere. In fact, there was no milk component at all. Also it tasted more like a lemon tea than anything else. I decided that maybe the girl, who wasn’t a native English speaker, may have misunderstood me and given me the wrong order. I tried a second time and the tea still wasn’t quite what I expected so I had to decide whether to carry on or not. I did try once more and that was a great experience and I have been going there periodically ever since.
The last couple few times I’ve been there, I have been adventurous and tried different flavors to the lavender milk tea. Once I tried the rose milk and that was bit sweeter than I like but still okay. Then I tried the Jasmine milk and that was really nice. Last time I tried Summer Dream and it was wonderfully fruity with flavors I recognised but couldn’t place. If I’d had more time I’d have queried which fruits were in it. There are still many other flavors to try, including something called Black Widow.  On my last two visits, the owner asked me to try out new flavors he’s working on. Both were faux alcohol varieties and both flavors I’ve never tasted before. First time it was gin flavor and it did taste a bit like I’d expect gin to taste as I am familiar with its smell. The second time was easier as I am quite familiar with the smell of cognac even if I’ve not tried it before. He is releasing several new flavors next week, all of this faux alchohol range. The owner seems to be a bit of a mad scientist and loves making new flavors, which seems a good thing when you see how many choices there are. Or perhaps that’s a bad thing because it makes  the decision all the harder. I might try one of the new flavors but I doubt any will make my favorite list any time soon. I seem to have latched on to the floral flavors right now and will likely stick to those for the foreseeable future.
