I-Tea Roasted barley milk tea with grass jelly: Returning again to the Kearny St. location of this bubble tea chain, I decided to try a drink with 0% sweetness and opted for the roasted barley milk tea. Like the last drink I had from i-Tea, the grass jelly was excellent. However, I found the tea to lack flavor, verging on bland. This may be my fault, since there was no sugar, but places like Asha do a fantastic job with barely sweetened teas, so I think this particular flavor just might be not so great. Still, there are other better o... (read more) 3.0/5.0
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Honeymee Honeymee Milk Ice Cream and Raw Honey: Honeymee's namesake dessert is a milk ice cream drizzled with raw honey topped with a cube of honeycomb, all served in a branded plastic cup. The milk ice cream is an excellent neutral base – creamy, barely sweetened, and aerated - the closest in texture to soft serve of any ice cream I've had. It makes eating the honey more manageable, but together, it's still overly sweet, especially if you leave the honeycomb until the end. You could just purchase the milk ice cream on its own, but wit... (read more) 3.0/5.0
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Purple Kow Roasted Oolong milk tea with boba: Originally from San Francisco, Purple Kow is a bubble tea shop that also has a location in downtown Berkeley directly adjacent to Top Dog. It serves its drinks in distinctly short and stout containers that are more like buckets than cups. Many of their milk teas are made using organic milk products. I ordered my roasted oolong milk tea with soymilk and 20% sugar and ice. The drink was very mild, tasting mostly of faintly sweetened milk and less so of tea. Their boba are miniature compar... (read more) 3.0/5.0
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Meiji Tofu Soy Milk: On my last trip to LA, my top priority was getting to try tofu from Meiji Tofu, a small shop in Gardena that specializes in hand-made tofu. I learned about Meiji Tofu from discovering that many restaurants in LA use its product. Unfortunately, after arriving at the shop at 10:30am on Sunday morning, we found they had sold out (they open at 8:30) and were thus closed for the day. Luckily, several Japanese grocery stores in the area stock their tofu and soy milk, so we quickly drove to Maru... (read more) 3.0/5.0
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Blockheads Black sesame shaved ice with red bean, rice cakes, almond jelly, and condensed milk: Finally got to try this LA-based Taiwanese shaved ice chain. The black sesame ice cream had decent flavor but the texture was not as fluffy as I knew it could be given my recent experience at Powder in San Francisco. At Blockheads, they make their rice cakes in house, which are essentially tang yuan (the mochi-like glutinous rice dumplings that often accompany red bean soup). I expected their almond jelly to be almond jello, but it was more like the harder gelatin cubes often used in Asia... (read more) 3.0/5.0
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Asha Tea Milk tea with boba: Though I've been to Asha many times, I've previously opted for their fruit teas every time since they tend to be very good. This time, I decided to give the classic black milk tea with boba a try. Personally, I find that Asha's boba, though housemade, lacks the firmness and pliancy that I prefer from a more substantial tapioca. The milk tea itself is both herbal and creamy. A solid, classic take, though it doesn't reach the same heights as their herbal fruit teas. 3.0/5.0
drinks boba milktea bubbletea ashatea milk tea 3.0