Boba Fett? No! Boba Tea!

On my lunch breaks I start to get a little bit bored and uncreative when it comes to where I could possibly go and still make it back within an hour. Luckily for me, I am near a little place called the Taiwan Tea House. I have driven by the plain storefront for a while now and never really realized that it was a place you could go and eat. I just thought that it was a store that sold nothing but fancy teas.

After looking on urbanspoon, I realized that they have a nice little selection of goodies to choose from, along with a big tea menu! And I am not just talking the delicate little tea that your Grammy would serve you at Easter, I am talking the full on boba tea! AKA Bubble Tea! Anything that sounds like something the Spongebob would drink, I am totally willing to try, except for maybe a seaweed crabby patty with special sauce…

Anyway – back to the awesomeness that is the Taiwan Tea House. For an appetizer, that is only two bucks, I was able to get a huge serving of fried tofu. Now, a lot of reviewers recommended the Mapa Tofu, but I wasn’t feelin a huge lunch, just a little something to hold me over. I was a little nervous that it was going to be this massive fried dough thing, but it was a really lightly battered dish with sweet chili and green onion sauce on top. I am not sure if they made their tofu from scratch at the store, but it definitely tasted like they could have.

For the drink of choice: Honeydew Green Tea with boba. Ok, so the deal behind this drink is that it is a sweetly flavored tea beverage invented in Taiwan. “Drink recipes may vary, but most bubble teas contain a tea base mixed with fruit (or fruit syrup) and/or milk. Ice blended versions of the drink are also available, usually in fruit flavors. Bubble teas also usually contain small tapioca balls or pearls called "boba". Pearls made of jelly are also available in many places. These teas are shaken to mix the ingredients, creating foam on the top of some varieties. This drink is called bubble tea because of the marble-sized tapioca balls or “pearls” that is present and sit at the bottom of the cup. These chewy balls, although having little flavor, are sucked up through large wide straws and are consumed along with the drink. Sometimes the customer will be asked if he or she wants ‘boba’ or ‘bubble,’ added in the drink. Both these terms refer to the tapioca balls”…thank you Wikipedia.

I had never had one of these before, so I asked the server what the most popular drink was and I don’t think he understood what I meant. He didn’t quite get that I wanted the best selling drink..”So, what do you want?”Oh well. After the fact, I learned that the coconut red milk tea with boba is a popular choice.

The MASSIVE drink was served in a nicely oversized goblet with a huge straw...the perfect size to suck up all those little boba balls. It is such a weird drink, but it was quite a little experience. So if you haven’t tried a boba tea yet, head over to 4040 E. 82nd St!