coffee and tea Archives - Curiously Carmen

Sharetea – Kingsway Location

May 8, 2019 Leave a Comment

Bubble tea is taking over, and I’m not mad about it at all! Share Tea is the another place that the boyfriend and I tried with Maki and Nigiri one evening. We ordered delivery, so I can not comment on the restaurant experience!

The location we ordered delivery from was on Kingsway Street in Vancouver. Their store is located across the street from Yi Fang Taiwan Fruit Tea, which is another really popular bubble tea place on my list. How do they compete with each other?! I guess Vancouverites really love their bubble tea.

Oolong milk tea: Maki and Nigiri shared the oolong milk tea. They’ve been to Share Tea a few times, and have enjoyed it. They had no complaints about their drink.

Hokkaido milk tea: The boyfriend has been enjoying his Hokkaido milk teas recently, ever since discovering it at Ding Tea. The Hokkaido milk tea at Share Tea was delicious as well! After reading up on it, the difference between a Hokkaido milk tea and a regular milk tea is that the Hokkaido milk tea uses a richer milk. This results in a richer and creamier flavour.

Wintermelon tea: For myself, I ordered the caffeine free wintermelon tea! I have been curious about wintermelon for a long time, so I finally ordered it.

Wintermelon has a mildly sweet taste, which would mix well with other fruits or tea. I ordered the 100% sweet with pearls, which I found too sweet. I would recommend getting it at 50% sweet, especially if you have toppings already.

On a second delivery order, I tried this half sweet which was a lot better! You can really taste the wintermelon. I’ve also tried the 30% sweet which I like too.

Fresh milk boba: The boyfriend decided to try the fresh milk boba the second time. It was caffeine free, basically composed of milk and pearls. He would order this again if he wanted something caffeine free.

Shiny Tea – International Village Location

May 5, 2019 Leave a Comment

After spending some time at Aquariums West in Yaletown, I noticed that Shiny Tea in International Village was only a 10 minute walk away! It was the perfect, sunny Spring day for a walk so off we went.

Shiny Tea is another chain that has popped up recently and has great reviews. I honestly don’t know how all these new places compete with each other but I guess everyone just loves their bubble tea.

Shiny Tea is located on the second floor of Intentional Village. This mall is quite dull and quiet with the exception of Yokoyaya123 and the theatre, so Shiny Tea is a nice addition and probably gives the mall some more traffic.

It was completely dead when the boyfriend and I came, and the black pearls were still being cooked. But we didn’t mind getting the clear ones which were ready.

Honey longan red date tea: I had my eyes set on this drink for awhile now because it is caffeine and dairy free! I also really like date tea.

I really enjoyed my drink. It was light, refreshing, and pure. The honey and dates gave it a well rounded sweetness. There were bits of ground up lychee which were delicious and sweet too.

The clear pearls were smaller than the regular pearls. They were alright, nothing that special but a nice addition to the drink.

Brown sugar milk tea: After trying Onezo’s delicious brown sugar milk tea, the boyfriend wanted to compare. He found that Shiny Tea did not have much brown sugar flavour. It tasted like a regular milk tea instead of a brown sugar one.

I would love to come back to Shiny Tea! I appreciate the fact that they have a caffeine free menu section, which is very rare.

OneZo Tapioca

April 27, 2019 1 Comment

Amongst the surge of new bubble tea places in the past year, OneZo inarguably has been one of the most popular and successful ones so far! I’ve heard good things about it from multiple people but have yet to go because me and caffeine don’t mix well.

For example, many years ago (when my stomach tolerated dairy), I drank a milk tea at 10 am and couldn’t sleep the next morning until 6 am! Another time, I was lying awake in bed at 2 am wondering why I couldn’t sleep…. After thinking of everything I ate/drank that day, realized I had a can of Pepsi during a family gathering. -_-”

I could get the slush but their tea drinks were their most popular so I didn’t feel like it would do justice. However, seeing that it was a 4 day long weekend, I figured I could have caffeine on Friday and have 3 more days to adjust my sleep schedule until going back to work on Tuesday!

After having lunch at Boiling Point, we walked over to OneZo but ended up missing it because it was quite inconspicuous! Once we got in though, it was packed (also because it’s small and narrow).

Passion fruit green tea with OneZo pearls: I wanted to try the fresh fruit tea but it only came in a large size, and I was not ready to commit to that much caffeine. So, the passionfruit was my second choice!

Let’s start with the pearls, which is what they’re famous for … They were sooo good and chewy!!! I got the OneZo pearls which was a daily preselected mix. That day, it was a mix of mango, sweet potato, and crystal. It was my first time trying flavoured pearls and it was delightful! The mango flavour was quite subtle but definitely had a tropical flavour. The sweet potato had a stronger flavour and reminded me of less dense version ZenQ’s sweet potato Q ball. The crystal pearl is your regular pearl but clear.

Moving on to the green tea, I found it really fragrant and strong! Since it’s been awhile for me and green tea, I asked the boyfriend to try and see what he thought because he drinks tea every week. He agreed that it was a stronger green tea and very fragrant.

My only complaint was the passionfruit seeds! I appreciated the quality and use of fresh passionfruit seeds, but the crunchy texture distracted the beautiful chewiness of the pearls. It reminded me of crunchy sunflower seed shells which is not what I’m wanting in bubble tea.

Although I enjoyed the taste of the passionfruit, I wouldn’t want the seeds in there again.

Brown sugar dirty milk: We are huge fans of LINE Friends, hence the Brown Bites series on my blog. We follow an IG page of Brown comics, and the night before, they posted a drawing of Brown drinking too much brown sugar dirty milk. So this was one of the influencing factors of the boyfriend getting the brown sugar dirty milk… Yes we are a bit (maybe very) crazy with LINE friends!

Anyways, he didn’t realize that this didn’t come with any tea. No complaints though because he really enjoyed the drink. It was sweet and had a nice caramelized flavour.

We thought there weren’t going to be any pearls but it ended up coming with your standard black pearls, which were tasty as well.

Overall, we both were very satisfied with OneZo and can see why it’s so popular! You can really taste the quality in their drinks and customized pearls. If you’re a pearl lover, I would definitely recommend coming here.

Ding Tea

April 12, 2019 2 Comments

Ding Tea is one of the new players to join the bubble tea competition in Vancouver, which has been surging recently! It is a Taiwanese chain that started in 2006, and they have some locations in the US as well. I’ve lost track of how many new bubble tea places opened in the past 6 months or so!

There aren’t many bubble tea areas in this part of East Van, so it is quite nice to finally have another addition in the area. They are located across from First Avenue Marketplace on Renfrew Street.

Walking in, the interior is spacious and thoughtfully decorated with a white theme. We came 2 weeks after opening, on a Saturday afternoon and there was a line up out the door.

Mango smoothie with crystal boba: After checking that the smoothie was not made with milk (safe!), I decided to get this. Sadly, they were out of the regular pearls, but the owner suggested the crystal boba which he described as a crunchy pearl. I was intrigued!

Turns out, the crystal pearl has a harder texture than boba, akin to lychee jelly. Taste wise, there wasn’t much taste to it. Think of lychee jelly texture in the shape of a ball, without the lychee taste. I wouldn’t get the crystal boba again, I prefer my pearls!

The mango smoothie itself had too much ice chunks, which made it not as enjoyable. It could have been blended longer for more consistency.

(I’m double jointed in my thumb which is why it looks weird…)

Hokkaido milk tea: These were one of the top 10 specials being advertised, so the boyfriend gave it a try! He was really impressed with the taste. The tea was strong and fragrant. It was a tad bit sweet, so it might be better to order it half sweet.

On a second visit, the boyfriend ordered the Hokkaido milk tea again. Since my mango slush had a lot of ice chunks, I decided to give the slushes another try but have strawberry instead. The slush was not good this time as well. There were ice chunks and the strawberry flavour was very artificial.

Lychee aloe juice: A non-caffeinated juice which was very tasty. There was a very generous portion of aloe chunks inside. We also added some coconut jelly which added more textures to the drink.

Monster boba latte: The monster is Ding Tea’s version of the brown sugar pearl latte, available after 1pm until quantities last. I was VERY happy to find out they had almond milk available, so I was able to order it! =D

I found that there was not much roasted brown sugar taste compared to other places I have tried. But it still satisfied my brown sugar latte craving and I am glad there is a place within walking distance if I’m ever craving it.

I would recommend coming here for the non slushes/smoothie drinks. The slushes/smoothies aren’t good, I also wish they had a fresh fruit option because it tasted very artificial.

Overall, I wouldn’t make the drive purposely for Ding Tea. But, it’s nice that there is finally another bubble tea place in this area. I’d come back because this area is convenient.

Cartems Donuts

April 2, 2019 Leave a Comment

I remember having Cartems donuts maybe like 6-7 years ago when a friend brought them to an university club event. They were delicious! Since then, I haven’t had Cartems so Latte and I went to go check out the Main Street location one evening!

The Main Street location was quite spacious, with very high ceilings. There was a friendly, good vibe going on in there and it would be a nice place to study or get some work done.

The bottom row of donuts are always vegan, so they do have a large selection of vegan donuts (one of the reasons I wanted to come back since I currently can’t have dairy). I was surprised that Latte wanted a vegan donut, but that’s better for me because it meant we could share!

Tea: We both ordered a tea with our donut. I had the herbal strawberry mint which was fragrant and warming.

Citrus glaze donut: This was my favourite out of the 3 that we ordered! The donut was thick and fluffy. The citrus glaze was subtle and gave it a nice, sweet tang. I’ve never had a citrus donut before but the flavours worked well with each other.

Maple walnut donut: This one was good too, but it was more of a savoury donut. It was topped with crushed walnuts and I tasted a hint of black pepper.

Vanilla bean donut: This donut was also good! It was the simplest one out of the 3, so we really tasted the quality of the donut. The donut was delightfully fluffy and moist.

I couldn’t stop thinking about that citrus glaze donut, so I took the boyfriend here a few days later! We ordered 1/2 dozen to bring back and tried more flavours.

The funny thing was that I decided to keep it a secret that it was vegan, so that he wasn’t bias in his opinions!!! MUAHAHA!!!

From left to right:

Vanilla bean: Reviewed above

Citrus glaze: Reviewed above

Chocolate donut: A classic donut, you can’t really go wrong with chocolate. The boyfriend loved it!

Forgot to take a separate photo of it, so this will do!

Tropical mint: The only donut that we did not like that day. The taste was just odd… it was a bit sweet but you get this minty aftertaste. We ended up scraping off the tropical glaze on top so we could eat it as a plain donut.

Salted caramel: This was the only ‘regular’ donut we had (aka not vegan). Since it contained dairy, I couldn’t eat it. He found it to be a lot more dense and not as fluffy, so he didn’t like it as much.

At this point, I was laughing inside and couldn’t wait to tell him this was the only dairy donut – MUAHAHA!!!

Berry hibiscus: This one was just alright…. it was filled with jam inside. The berry hibiscus donut wasn’t as fluffy as the other ones.

After the boyfriend ate all the donuts, I mischievously told him that they were all vegan except for the salted caramel! He was quite shocked and never would have guessed.

Cartems Donuts are amazing and they have very creative flavours! I would definitely recommend stopping by. They have a huge selection of vegan flavours which are arguably better than the regular, non-vegan ones!