BBT Is Life

Rarely see no queue at Fruce so I finally got to try it today! I got the Nagoya Coffee Milk Tea with minimal sugar (30%) and added on some grass jelly. The coffee fragrance was pleasant but not too strong so it’s still okay to drink at night, and the drink was super creamy. Portion of grass jelly was disappointing, but it was springy and had a good texture. I’d go with the Kyoto Kanten next time instead!

Unlike the Jewel outlet, there’s a minimal queue at The Alley Luxe in Cathay Cineleisure. We got our drinks within 5 minutes and there were plenty of seats on Sunday night for us to enjoy our beverages. Note that the Deerioca series comes with a fixed sugar level. This was way too sweet for me, and I didn’t enjoy the cocoa after mixing it with the brown sugar pearls. The cocoa milk was pretty decent on its own before being stirred with the brown sugar, so drink it that way if you don’t like super sweet drinks. I can see why people do like the pearls at The Alley though, they’re QQ and just the right texture for bubble tea. While I wouldn’t order the Deerioca series again because it’s just too sweet for my tastes, I wouldn’t mind getting their other drinks with pearls.

Matcha Deerioca Brown sugar milk and Deerioca Brown sugar milk
Honestly not worth queueing for unless you have an extreme sweet tooth. Bubble tea stalls are a dime a dozen nowadays, and apart from having nailed the art of making tapioca pearls with just the right consistency, The Alley bubble teas just don’t stand out in the crowd. It probably boils down to a matter of preference - how much do you like brown sugar milk, or how important are pearls to you? Does it justify queueing for? For me, I’m out. Gong Cha or Koi are enough to satisfy my BBT cravings should they arise.

After a number of recommendations from friends to go try Ten Ren Tea, I finally made my way down to the Chinatown Point outlet. Unsure of what to order on their menu, I went with one of the recommended items on the menu (marked with a crown) - the Matcha Latte Cooler. This only comes in medium size for $5.60, and you can’t change the sugar level which is set at a default of 100%.

Didn’t have to wait very long, but I would not order this again even if there was no queue. The beverage was way too sweet for anyone to appreciate the matcha flavour. I don’t get why the sugar level can’t be changed, but I’m not impressed with this tea house at all. Buy this beverage at your own risk or if you have a notorious sweet tooth.

Visited at after Sunday midnight at the wee hours of Monday morning upon returning from a late flight. There was no queue, but we soon figured out why. Apparently The Alley doesn’t serve their signature Deerioca pearl series from 10pm-10am. In addition, if we wanted pearls as toppings for our teas, we’d have to wait 30 minutes. Well, ok then. Looks like it’s not such a smart idea to visit at night.

We settled for both the milk teas at 25% sugar and no toppings. The difference between both teas is that the Royal No. 9 Tea (pictured on the left) tastes of blueberries, while the Assam black tea (pictured on the right) is a regular black tea. I felt that the blueberry flavour only came through subtly in a fruity afternote. Perhaps if I hadn’t asked the cashier what the difference was, I wouldn’t even have known what to look out for. I preferred the regular Assam black milk tea over the Royal No. 9 as the aroma of the tea was stronger and more fragrant. The fruitiness also didn’t do it for me. There’s a notice stuck at the start of the queue barriers that the Royal No. 9 tea series is limited to one cup per customer, but I didn’t feel that was much of a loss. I would be happy saving $0.50 with the Assam black milk tea, or equally happy buying milk teas from other BBT shops as The Alley’s milk teas didn’t seem to be anything particularly special.

Changed up the foam order a little with taro milk foam. This was actually really good! The taste of taro is quite subtle but it’s pleasant and complements the foam and light black tea really well. 30% was also a good sugar level for this as without any sugar the aftertaste of the black tea might overwhelm the rest of the drink. This drink be a good foam beverage alternative for those who don’t like cheesy tastes!

Ordered this when we were unfortunately informed that the Salted Egg and Durian flavours were unavailable today.

The soft serve is pretty light in taste - I’m not sure if it’s supposed to taste like milk tea or something, but its taste is overpowered by the brown sugar pearls. The soft serve was a little too soft and melted too quickly for my liking though, so this cup needs to be finished pronto! Surprisingly the ice cream wasn’t too sweet despite the brown sugar, and I really enjoyed the boba which were a good balance of soft and chewy. If some strong tea flavours could be infused into the soft serve, this would be a great cup of bubble tea in ice cream form.

A quick stab in the dark for a green tea-based drink when we reached the front of the queue before having a good look at the menu.

We got this with 25% sugar and it was so tasteless. The green tea is light, and the ice just dilutes it even further. Didn’t enjoy this.

I don’t like the fancy names at HEYTEA as it makes it so complicated to know what you’re actually ordering, but maybe that’s just me.

This seems to be an unpopular opinion among my friends, but I really enjoy the cheese foams on bubble tea so it was a no brainier to order a cheezo tea at HEYTEA.

Despite the queue, it moves very quickly, we barely had time to skim and take in the menu when the queue of 5 people ahead of us quickly moved along. With the pressure to order quickly, I pointed to one of the recommended items on the menu - the Cheezo King Fone and opted for 25% sugar.

The wait for collection is slightly longer, but it moves relatively quickly. I still have no idea what the King Fone tea is but it pairs very nicely with the cheese foam! The slightly bitter taste of tea, sweetness from the sugar, and the savoury taste of the cheese foam come together really well. I’ll be back to try the other ice cream flavours and cheezo BBT!

Originally ordered this because it was on the GrabFood $1 tea time deals. Sugar level is preset to 50% and there are no pearls in the drink, which is totally fine with me.

Actually legitimately very impressed with the milk tea at Tea Tree Cafe. The tea aroma was quite strong, and the roasted undertones were super delicious. Milk ratio to tea was good. $1 with no delivery charge is practically a steal! Might buy their bubble tea with less sugar if I pass by a cafe in the future :)

I’ve tried ordering from Tiger Sugar at Chinatown Point multiple times around 8.30-9pm and they’re usually sold out of boba and small pearls - never ordered because the pearls are like 90% of the drink right?! Today, the large pearls were out of stock but there were still small pearls available so we just ordered anyway.

The cashier was patient and recommended the cream mousse - saying it’s really really nice. There wasn’t much of a queue while ordering, and we only had 3 people waiting ahead of us for their orders so we had our cup in less than 10 minutes in all. It’s a nicely presented beverage - with the brown sugar coating the cup, it really looks like a tiger’s stripes! We were instructed to shake at least 15 times before drinking, but even after 15 shakes there was still some residual brown sugar coating the cup.

Now this was a really creamy, milky and smooth beverage. To my surprise, it wasn’t as sweet as I expected given the amount of brown sugar there was inside. The small pearls were also perfect for chewing on as and when you wished to, because they were also small enough just to swallow if you’re too lazy to chew 🤣 Their texture was impeccable, very well cooked and bouncy. Overall we really liked Tiger Sugar’s Brown Sugar Pearl Milk, and wouldn’t mind buying it again, but we wouldn’t queue for it.

Flavour of the tea was quite weak, not much oomph in it. Could neither detect much of the oolong leaves nor any roasted taste. Felt like we were drinking extremely watered down tea.

At least the highlight of this drink was supposed to be the Kurozu konyaku. Kurozu is actually black vinegar, and Kakuida’s version has been aged for 3 years and infused with real fruit extracts. I didn’t actually know this prior to drinking the tea, so I had an interesting sensory experience when I first sucked up the jelly bits! The jelly was vinegary and sour, but also had fruity sweetness to it. Very nice, and went well with the tea. The beverage was unique, super refreshing and I enjoyed every sip of it. Perfect to cool off on a hot day ✌🏻