Bye-bye boba

I should've seen it coming. My study abroad semester in Shanghai will be marred by the fact that China blocks blogspot and pretty much every other common blogging site you can think of. BUT never fear. I WILL continue the worldwide boba tour, just not on this site...at least, not until I return to the States. I don't know yet what the new URL will be, but I'll be sure to notify my loyal reader(s) of any updates on the situation.

In the meantime, please e-mail me at CatherineChangHsinHo@gmail.com. Messages sent to this account are not limited to boba discussion, though I may nudge our conversation toward that direction.

Seeing that I'm off to China tomorrow, it seems fitting to bid a temporary farewell in Mandarin. So, hui tou jian! (See ya soon!) Here's one last post to tide you over until January:


Mountain View, Calif. - Verde is one of several boba places that lots of Bay Area kids associate with their youth. And by "youth," I mean their formative high school years during which they flocked to boba places after school to overreact about SAT scores. I say "they," not "us," because I grew up in Almaden, not Cupertino/Saratoga/Palo Alto/Los Altos/Mountain View. I'm told by two trusted sources that, until about a year ago, Verde was totally camped out with neon green and blue decor, Britney Spears concert DVDs blasting in the corner, and Chinese chess boards. Today, the space is much more...hmm, shall we say...chic? Less garish, certainly. Dim lighting and rich dark brown wood ("My apartment smells of rich mahogany...") make for a less intimidating environment for non-boba connoisseurs, we concluded.

BOBA BRIEFING
Name: Verde Tea Cafe












Address: 852 Villa St., Mountain View, CA 94041. Another location in Cupertino.
Phone: (650) 210-9986
Date visited: Monday, Aug. 27, 2007
Goes by: Boba, QQ pearls
Price: $2.75-$3.75
Form: Summer shaved ice (only in the summer), smoothie freeze, frozen romance (like a smoothie, but with more fresh fruit and ice, and thicker), frothy iced tea, frothy milk tea
Flavors: About 80
Hot/cold: Both
Flavors tried: Frothy pearl milk tea, Pink Valentine frozen romance (rose petals)
Lid style: VERY hard plastic, pre-poked. More on this later.
Smiles: I really like the frothy quality of the milk tea. For one, it makes for a thicker top layer that actually allows the straw to stand alone like such:

• The sizes are quite large. Plus, the dome-like lid allows for an extra dollop of smoothie or frozen romance that a flat lid would not permit. We call this lid style the BOBA MAXIMIZER. The BOBA MAXIMIZER makes for good boba bang for your buck.

• The BOBA MAXIMIZER is also surprisingly strong. In fact, my friend cut her finger trying to pry it off. Bad for fingers, good for preventing boba spillage.

• The tea is sweet, but the tea flavor is definitely still distinct.

• The frozen romance is much thicker than I imagined a blend of ice and fruit could be. It's so thick that if you stir up the tapioca, the romance will actually support the weight of the balls, and effectively hold the balls in place. (There's a sentence I never thought I'd write.)

Scowls: This is unfair, but I don't really like the idea of eating rose petals (Pink Valentine was Angie's order, not mine), so I didn't enjoy the frozen romance as much as another person might. But, like I said, that's an unfair criticism. More importantly, though, a horde of girls came in at one point (a local soccer team, perhaps?), and one of them tried drinking boba with a NORMAL STRAW. What respectable boba place would allow for this kind of nonsense?

Most memorable bo-ment: Coming up with the term BOBA MAXIMIZER. Duh.

Pondering the benefits of boba maximization

Overall rating: 9/10