All About Tea! + 3:15PM Milk Tea Review!

Today I thought I would do something a little different since I'm still exhausted from my flight back home from California. My first day back was filled with good news, but incredibly busy!! I officially received my Driver's License!!

But that's beside the point. While I was in California, I tried many different kinds of bubble tea. For those of you who don't know what it is, it is either smoothies, flavoured milk teas, tea smoothies etc. that come with chewy little tapioca pearls at the bottom. Since it's eruption into popularity, many other alternatives to the traditional tapioca pearl came about., so now I rarely get the familiar black pearl, but different kinds of jellies and add-ons. Here are my top three favourites in order of me trying them.




Excuse the mish-mash of photos taken with my camera and photos taken with my cell phone.

Quickly's Honey Rose Green Tea with Pudding

The first time I tried Quickly's was in New York, and I became obsessed with their "pudding" add-in. I always add it to everything because it tastes so good--and it also doesn't interfere with the taste of the tea inside.

Tapioca Express Lavender Matcha Snow with Mango Stars

I'd never been until TapEx until my cousin took me here last week. The menu had the same general flavours, but one stuck out to me as refreshingly different. Lavender Matcha!! IT ended up tasting delicious--first off I love "Snow" flavours (where milk and ice is blended into the tea to create a thick smoothie), and the distinct lavender undertone to the green tea taste was just heavenly. I also had to try the mango stars the moment I noticed their shape. Too cute!! They also happened to use a Gemini seal on my tea, which is my sign~

Tea Era Rose Tea with Aloe

Following my obsession with Quickly's rose tea, I stumbled upon a store called "Tea Era" that had received over 100 five star reviews. It was this tiny little store that we accidentally walked past a couple times, but their service was superb. The rose taste is much stronger in this tea--it wasn't specified whether they were using green tea or black tea--and the aloe jellies were perfect for a hot day in the sun. As far as my research has taken me, the only Tea Era is in Mountain View--and damn it is good.

Quickly's Tiger Milk Tea with Taro Pudding (Chubby cup size!)

Okay, so aside from the fact that the Chubby cup is the cutest size ever, Tiger Milk Tea was the best idea ever and I have since had to slowly explain to other stores how to make it. It is half milk tea and have Thai iced tea--the perfect combo!! With Taro pudding added in, it was heaven. <3 I've since had Honey Berry make it for me, even though it wasn't on their menu, and they were so terrified I was going to hate it. But it was good! I want to make it at home now too.

I'm also going to review a set of "instant" milk teas by a Taiwanese (EDIT: I had previously mistakenly called this brand Chinese!) brand called "3:15PM." I purchased two flavours, Earl Grey Milk Tea (upon recommendation from my cousin) and Rose Fruity Milk Tea. They both sound absolutely delicious, but first I decided to try the Earl Grey Milk Tea. Their price ranges from 4-5 dollars, and for the number of bags (12), which is actually really cheap compared to how much it goes for online!!

The come in little satchels that are perfect for putting in your purse as an easy drink to make when you go to school or work! All you need is boiling water and some ice if you prefer your milk tea iced.

Overall, the Earl Grey Milk Tea was pretty good. I steeped it for the maximum amount of time--5 minutes--thinking that since I plan on dropping ice in it it will weaken the taste. I was wrong. I felt like the taste of the tea was really over-powering, so next time I'm not going to brew it for as long. I also think Earl Grey Milk Tea would probably taste better warm. ;A; I'm doing everything wrong today it seems!! When I initially steeped it, I thought it wasn't creamy at all, but when I took the bag out, all the creamer from inside the bag started to dissolve faster and it came out looking great.

Then I tried making the Rose Fruity Milk Tea, which I decided I'd drink warm. It was absolutely heavenly. I steeped it for the whole 5 minutes as well and it tasted great--this is definitely not an overpowering taste at all.

Overall, I would recommend this to everyone--but only if you can find it locally in an Asian market like I did. I happened to find it in a random grocery store in Mountain View (the same time I got Tea Era). I'm probably going to ask my cousin to help me purchase more from there because it was such a great price! I wish I could have fit more in my bag.