Day 3: Taro/Boba Milk Tea
Apparently, if you live within the confines of any urban city for longer than 6 months, getting Boba tea is more common than showering. Arguably the successor to the whole kitschy frozen yogurt store craze that’s been sweeping the suddenly health-obsessed nation, Boba tea offers something completely different for the same price as your “must-have” double shot Carmel Macchiato with extra whip/all the foo-foo trimmings. That, and it comes in just about every flavor of smoothie every conceived ever. Rad.
Upon first sip, I instantly shot back to the first time I bought a bag of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans from my local Blockbuster (RIP) at my Dad’s behest. On the very first try, I got this weird tapioca-reject that was supposed to be buttered popcorn. Hardly Orville Redenbacher quality. Taro is exactly that odd blend of confusion and vanilla-whatever in liquid form. As for Boba, I immediately assumed I was getting melty Milk Duds in the bottom of my drink or something, but instead was met with this jelly-tastic barrage of chewy globular pudding. Again, rad says I, but my American tongue accustomed to chocolate-everything didn’t quite know how to handle this mixture of flavors at first. Hindsight 20/20, it wasn’t all that bad.
Overall, I can see why this thing caught on somewhere, somehow. Granted, I’d hardly go out of my way for one of these. Falling somewhere between a step-up from any McFlurry and a demotion from a typical Tropical Smoothie drink, you kids need to get on this, even if just once.
