coffee and tea Archives - Curiously Carmen

SunTea

February 10, 2021 Leave a Comment

I have heard the buzz surrounding SunTea for awhile now. SunTea is located in Kensington Plaza in Burnaby. We were in the area and since I saw so many good things about SunTea, we decided to try it out.

However, we were disappointed with our visit and it left much to be desired.

It was dark when we went, and originally had some trouble looking for the shop inside the plaza. They are located close to the Kensington Ave entrance on the side, by the Shoppers. Lots of free plaza parking was available.

Due to the pandemic, the cafe was closed for dine in and they offered pick up only. They don’t even let customers order at the counter – you have to download their app and place your order there. There is a number sign on the window letting you know when your order is ready.

Brown sugar milk: The fiance ordered the oreo brown sugar milk and thought it was disappointing. I had a few sips and agreed as well. There are way better brown sugar drinks out there.

The drink didn’t have much flavour and you can already tell just by looking at the drink how plain it was. Usually you can see the brown sugar coated on the cup.

The drink also advertised oreo chunks but there were none to be found.

Coconut pudding mango coconut milk: This sounded amazing but this was not drinkable. I ended up throwing it away after a few sips because of how bad it was.

The coconut milk was very watery and not rich. There was a small amount of mango inside (unlike the advertised photo), and what mango there was, was sour and hard.

Now that I’m looking up the menu for the review, it also says that the drink included coconut pudding but there wasn’t any in the drink??? This was an extremely disappointing drink.

Taro with oat milk: The taro with oat milk was the only decent drink, but even then it was a fail. Why? Because the drink was also supposed to come with oats, but they were sold out. They ended giving us extra pearls to make up for it, but it was still disappointing because the drink was supposed to have oats.

It has been awhile since we had bubble tea THAT bad…. I don’t remember the last time we had such disappointing bubble tea.

At least one topping was missing from every drink – the oreos in the brown sugar milk, coconut pudding in the mango coconut drink, and oats in the taro oat milk drink. 2/3 drinks were also watery and not good.

With so many bubble tea shops everywhere these days, SunTea is at the bottom of my list and I do not want to come back.

Paragon Tea Room

February 4, 2021 Leave a Comment

I have seen Paragon Tea Room all over social media, especially in the beginning of the pandemic when everyone was ordering their at-home BBT kits. The BBT kits didn’t appeal to me so I didn’t check this place out.

Maki was telling me that she really liked the hojicha tea here, so I decided to stop by during the holidays to pick up a bag for her!

Paragon Tea Room is located in a busy area on Cambie Street, right off Cambie bridge so parking is hard to find. We parked a few blocks away close to Remi Patisserie and walked over.

To my surprise, it was pretty busy here and there was a line up. The cafe actually has two shops – Paragon Tea Room and Porto Cafe. There are two separate ordering lines (with Paragon’s more popular) but they share a sitting area and washroom.

Hojicha: Paragon specializes in hojicha tea from Japan. Hojicha is a type of roasted green tea with low caffeine content due to the high roasting temperature. There were a few different types of hojicha, and I was having trouble choosing so I asked the staff who recommended the hojicha bronze for drinking.

I don’t remember which is which, but apparently there is a bag that is better for baking vs. drinking. I’m sure you can’t go wrong with any of the bags here, but you could ask the friendly staff like I did for recommendations.

Hojicha oat latte: Since I was here anyways, I decided to try their latte, especially learning that it there wasn’t much caffeine. My body is very sensitive to caffeine, even in tea. If I drink it in the morning, I still am not able to sleep at night.

For a rough comparison, hojicha has 8 mg of caffeine compared to 70 mg of caffeine in matcha.

The hojicha latte was delicious! The oat milk made it velvety smooth and gave it some richness. The hojicha was fragrant and had a strong roasted taste to it.

The tea quality here is great and I would recommend stopping by. The tea powder bags would also be good presents to give.

Baroness Bubble Tea – Two Visits

January 26, 2021 1 Comment

I have heard about Baroness Bubble Tea for awhile now when they first opened in late 2019. They are known for using oat milk, which is great for me because I can’t drink milk! Unfortunately, the store was far for me and I am rarely in that area.

When we went to pick up Raisu for my birthday, I noticed Baroness was nearby so we stopped here too. It ended up being one of our new favourite places and we went back here again a couple weeks later.

The cafe is quite small and parking is hard to find since they are located at a busy intersection, West Broadway and Macdonald. Due to COVID, they have closed off their seating area so it is take out only.

Purple yam with oat milk: The purple yam drink here was delicious and did not disappoint. The yam did not taste artificial and had a smooth, nutty flavour.

In addition, the oat milk was creamy and delicious. The pearls were very chewy and fresh. Everything about this drink was delicious and I ended up ordering it again on our second visit.

Brown sugar milk: The fiance ordered the standard brown sugar milk. His drink was also very enjoyable, with the perfect amount of sweetness and chewy, soft pearls.

Wintermelon oat milk: Wintermelon tea is delicious and caffeine free. I haven’t seen a wintermelon oat milk drink before, but this was also delicious.

I find that wintermelon has a very subtle and light taste, and is easily overpowered by other ingredients. However, the wintermelon taste was still evident with the creamy oat milk.

Chestnut oat milk smoothie: Another drink that I haven’t seen around in other bubble tea shops. I didn’t see them making this drink so I am not 100% sure if they use real chestnut, but it sure tasted like it. It didn’t taste artificial.

Baroness has quickly risen to the top of my bubble tea list, and I would highly recommend trying their drinks. One thing to note is that their hours are limited compared to other shops. They are closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, and open only from 2pm-7pm on the other days.

Although Baroness is out of the way for me, I would gladly make the drive there if I was free that day because their drinks are high quality and delicious. I am looking forward to my next visit.

The Alley – Richmond Location

October 25, 2020 Leave a Comment

I remember when The Alley opened their first location in downtown 1.5 years ago. They were the first bubble tea shop to offer soy milk alternative, so I really wanted to try it because I was missing out on the brown sugar milk craze.

There were crazy line ups so I was planning on trying it in a few months, but by then I found other bubble tea shops that started to offer non-dairy brown sugar milk drinks (such as Jenjudan, Chun Yang, Ding Tea, Dive In Dessert Bar if you also can’t drink milk!) and I forgot about The Alley. Since then, they have opened a second location in Richmond which is where I will be reviewing today!

After having lunch with Maki at Deer Garden in Continental Plaza, I was originally going to take her to Blackball Dessert just across the parking lot. However, after such a filling lunch, we both didn’t feel like eating dessert so we decided to get drinks for later from The Alley which was also in the same plaza.

Due to the pandemic, The Alley was not offering any dine-in and all the chairs and tables were gone. The cafe was pretty small but had very high ceilings so it didn’t feel that small. I’m a big fan of deer art, so I appreciated the big deer mural and deer paintings.

Brown sugar deerioca fever with soy milk: I went with the brown sugar drink! This was delicious. The brown sugar gave the drink a nice, smooth, caramel taste to it. Meanwhile, the brown sugar pearls were very fresh, soft and chewy. It was perfect.

Jasmine green milk tea: I ordered this for the fiance. He really enjoyed the drink. There was a strong jasmine flavour.

Trio milk tea: Maki ordered this for Nigiri and he enjoyed it! It is called the “trio” because it came with pearls and two types of jelly inside. The milk tea was rich and flavourful. Also, the quality of the large cups were great. The cup was very thick and sturdy and you could probably reuse it a few times.

Royal no. 9 milk tea: For herself, Maki ordered a different milk tea. She enjoyed hers as well. There was a hint of jasmine in the tea and she found the milk tea to be really smooth and delicious. Even at 70% sweetness, it was still sweet enough for her.

I’m glad that I finally tried The Alley and wish I came sooner! We all enjoyed our drinks and had no complaints about it. Everything was made with quality and the prices were reasonable too. I would definitely come back here to get my bubble tea fix.

Despite only one visit, they have quickly risen to one of my top recommendations for bubble tea.

Presotea

September 28, 2020 Leave a Comment

The Brentwood area has gone under significant changes in the past few years. The Amazing Brentwood is nearing completion, and there are many trendy restaurants slated to open there soon. There is also a new option for bubble tea in The Amazing Brentwood, Presotea. I’ve been hearing about this place for a couple months so we finally went to go try it out.

We weren’t quite sure where Presotea was located in The Amazing Brentwood and there didn’t seem to be a map installed yet, so we walked around for a bit before we saw it. The best place to describe Presotea would be on the ground level, so you don’t have to walk up any stairs. It is closest to the corner of Lougheed and Willingdon. I hope these somewhat vague instructions can help someone, lol!

The menu was pretty expansive, spanning two pages. There were a lot of options for caffeinated and non-caffeinated drinks.

Watermelon slush with pearls: The watermelon slush was a seasonal drink, available in the summer and until watermelon goes out of season. The watermelon was fresh, and I found the drink to be really refreshing on a hot summer’s day (oops, I wrote this post back in August and didn’t publish until now).

The slush was blended well, with no ice chunks inside. In addition, the pearls were delightfully chewy and fresh!

Genmaicha milk tea with white pearls: The fiance ordered the genmaicha milk tea and enjoyed his drink as well. The drink had a stronger milk taste than tea. The tea could have been a bit stronger to give the drink more tea flavour, but it was still enjoyable.

He ordered white pearls with his drink. I’m not sure what the difference between the regular pearls and the white pearls were.

We left satisfied with Presotea and would come back if we were in the area, but it’s not a place I would purposely drive to because there are so many other bubble tea shops closer that I’d pick first.

However, it’s a great addition to the Brentwood area and the service was really friendly and nice.