Bubble Tea

{Bitstop}

A couple of weeks ago I "met" Christine (aka MiniMak) from MiniMak Makings.  She gave me a Beautiful Blogger award and has been so supportive ever since.  Her blog is really great.  She is very talented and I always feel inspired when I read her blog.  You should check it out. 

In her Beautiful Blogger award post she mentioned that she loved bubble tea.  I didn't really know what bubble tea was so I asked...and then she did the sweetest thing ever and wrote a blog about it just for me!  I had to see what it was all about, so I decided I would go try bubble tea for myself and write a blog about it.

This one's for you, Christine! :-)

{Kaboodle, Cafe Press, We Heart It, FanPop}

What is bubble tea?  I really have no idea (except for Christine's blog) so I decided to do some searching online to see if I could figure it out. 

This is what I found...

Bubble tea is a sweet drink that usually has a tea base and a flavoring in either powder or syrup form.  Some are fruit based and some are milk based.  Small tapioca (or boba) pearls sit at the bottom of the drink. 

I found a recipe for how to make bubble tea, but it seems like it's really time consuming so it's probably easier to go buy it.  :o) 

{Cafe Press}

When I finished helping some of my friends at The Well sort through donations for Caritas today I set out on my adventure to try bubble tea.  I looked up places online to see where I could go to try it.  Most of them seemed to be close to the UT campus so I drove to a place in north Austin to avoid having to drive on campus.  I really dislike driving anywhere downtown.  One way streets and lack of parking does not equal a happy Marci.  I went to a place called Short N' Sweet Cafe.  It was pretty cute inside and it was in a shopping center called Chinatown Center.  I had no idea that was there.  It was kind of cool!

I went in with absolutely no idea what I was doing so I just went up to the cash register and asked if they had taro bubble tea.  Then he asked me if I wanted the milk base or smoothie.  WHAT???  I told him I had no idea what that meant because I had never tried this before and let him pick for me.  He picked the milk base.  Okay.  Sounds good to me!

I gave him my debit card to pay and he said there was a $10 limit on credit cards.  NOOO!!!  I could not go home without trying bubble tea after I drove that far to try it!  Luckily there was a bank in the same parking lot so I could use the atm and get cash.  I did not want $10 worth of bubble tea and I don't know where anything is in north Austin!

I finally got my bubble tea and it was time to taste it.

It looks kind of cool

It has to have that huge straw for the tapioca pearls at the bottom

I thought it tasted pretty good.  I enjoyed the taro flavor.  It was very, very, very sweet.  I had to take a minute between sips because of the sweetness and I wasn't able to finish the whole thing because it was so sweet.  :o)

If I ever try it again I will probably not get the tapioca pearls at the bottom.  They didn't really have a flavor but it was a little weird to take a sip of my drink and then have to chew something.  The texture was strange, too. 

I may try a different flavor if I ever have bubble tea again.  The fruit flavors seem like they could be yummy.  I probably won't make any special trips to North Austin to have it again but if I ever come across it somewhere I may be brave and try a new flavor. 

Overall I think this was a fun little adventure!  Thanks for telling me about it Christine!  :o)