(Way) Lost in Translation

Shanghai - Okay, I am an idiot. So I go to this little boba hole-in-the-wall across the street from my dorm, right. (For the record, that's in the Yangpu district of Shanghai.) And instead of ordering my usual milk tea with boba (here, it's zhen zhu nai cha. Zen zhu = pearl, nai cha = milk tea), I decide to be adventurous because hey, my buddy from Hong Kong is visiting and we should live it up and have some flavored boba for a change, right.

Oh, one more thing: we just learned fruits in Chinese class last week.

So, thinking I'm all cool and well-versed in my fruit, I order a honeydew ("honey-gua") boba for my friend, and a coconut (bo luo) boba for myself, which I had seriously been thinking about for a week and just never knew how to order, because I didn't know how to say coconut in Chinese, and was too lazy to look it up.

I get my boba (which is a suspicious yellowish color, instead of white), take a sip, and vehemently declare, "This is SO not coconut!" Imagine wanting coconut boba for an entire week and then getting some weird pineapple-tasting thing instead. I was pissed!

Turns out it was pineapple. Because bo luo means pineapple in Chinese.

How do you say "Oops" in Chinese?


Honeydew boba (L) and pineapple (NOT coconut) boba (R)

In any case, both were gross. You could still taste the powder they used to make the milk tea. It was only 2.5RMB, though, which is about $0.33. Forgivable? I'm still deciding.

When I have a few minutes, I'll give the complete Boba Briefing. For now, I'm going to go look for a video I took of a woman making boba in rural(ish) Huangshan, where I went for National Week Holiday. No joke - I was outside the gates of Xidi, an ancient village founded in 1047 in southern Anhui province, and there was a boba stand. Look for updates soon, as well as entries about a Lollicup near the Guilin night markets!

OMG

Shanghai - OMIGOD. I didn't think I'd be able to post from China. I think this is what's going on: China blocks blogspot.com, but not blogger.com. Ergo, I can log in, post and edit my entries, but I can't view my blog afterwards. Or read the comments that people leave me. It's like having an itch you can't scratch. Infuriating!

Word on the street is that in China, "upscale" boba places serve you tea, tapioca and cream/sugar all separately so you can add the condiments according to your personal taste preferences. Will investigate further.

My life just got so much better. Didn't yours?

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

Thrice the boba

Me and my sister IM-ing while she's at work (two days after having boba in LA during a visit with relatives):

E: How come the posts from LA aren't there?
C: I haven't uploaded pix yet
C: omg woman, don't you ever work?!
E: I try not to...

All right, keep your knickers on.

Rowland Heights, Calif. - Okay, the first thing you should know about Rowland Heights is that it has one of the densest Chinese populations in the United States. This is especially true with Taiwanese immigrants. Now, consider this: boba originated in Taiwan. You do the math. Here, I'll help:

B = boba

F = fobbiness*

*I am using this term out of endearment - something I can do because I am related to "fobs" and have had lifelong contact with so-called "fob culture." If you haven't, I don't suggest you do the same, lest you fancy a beating...

Anyways,

B + F = Boba in nearly every shopping center for a two-mile stretch

Alternate solution:

B + F = Hitting up three (yes, THREE. Tres. Trois.) boba places within 30 minutes. Folks, that's called power boba-ing.

BOBA BRIEFING (1)
Name: Little Bean (Chinese translation: Green bean sprout)

Little Bean entrance

Address: 18145 Colima Rd., Rowland Heights, CA 91748
Phone: (626) 965-1616
Web site: www.littlebean.com

Date visited: Saturday, Aug. 25, 2007
Goes by: Boba
Price: $2.50-$3.50
Form: Fruit smoothie, tea, milky tea
Flavors: More than 100
Hot/cold: Both
Flavors tried: Tapioca milky red tea

Tapioca milk red tea

Lid style: Hard plastic, pre-poked
Smiles: Fast, easy and sweet.

• I ordered my drink and got it in about 30 seconds. Scoop, pour, cap and...*spirit fingers*

Rapid-fire boba scooping


Rapid-fire milk tea pouring

• They sell seemingly endless rows of candy: Nerds, Pop Rocks, those speckled egg things (do they have a name?), and lots more.

Candy!

• Their TV was playing Beijing opera.

• If you've grown up suppressing guffaws over mispelled Chinese menu items and supermarket signs, you'll appreciate this category on their menu: "Tea Time and Desert"

• Gift certificates and gift baskets

• They deliver for orders of more than $30 within 5 miles.
  

Scowls: A few.

• The boba was still warm when I started drinking. It cooled off quickly, but for the first couple minutes, you're slurping up warm gooey stuff while drinking cool-ish tea, which is kinda disorienting. Guess that's what happens when you try to wham-bam-thank-you-boba.


• Minimum for paying with credit card is $15.00. Not a problem this time, but what happens if I get robbed on the way to boba, and dumb thieves steal ONLY my cash? I'd have to buy, like, six boba. Look, I'm not MADE of money. I just got robbed, remember?


• LOTS of leftover boba after finishing the tea. I might've drank it wrong, but I've never been THIS off. I blame Taiwan.

Most memorable bo-ment: I really embarassed my sister by taking lots of boba photos. That was fun.

Overall rating: 8/10

--30--

BOBA BRIEFING (2)

Name: Ten Ren's Tea Time



Counter

Address: 18423 Colima Rd., Rowland Heights, CA 91748. Other locations in Walnut, City of Industry, Arcadia and Riverside.
Phone: (626) 854-6045
Web site: www.tenrenusa.com
Date visited: Saturday, Aug. 25, 2007
Goes by: Boba
Price: $2.75-$4.25 (Add $0.50 for boba)
Form: Milk tea, flavored tea, teazer (icy smoothie-like blends), iced coffee
Flavors: About 70
Hot/cold: Both (double check)
Flavors tried: Almond milk tea w/ boba

My sister and almond milk tea

Lid style: Hard plastic, pre-poked
Smiles:

• The almond milk tea had a very pleasant flavor - not too sweet, and with just enough almond flavoring.


• The boba is soft, but with enough resistance when you chew.


• Gift cards


• Lots of young fobby people
  


• They sell a wide array of boxed tea and tea sets. This chain originally started out as a tea store, and later branched out to boba.

Tea, tea and more tea

• Concert fliers for my boy Jay Chou!
• Tacky decor - think green paper vines hanging from the windows. While others may have put this under the "Scowls" section, I chose to embrace the tastelessness. Who doesn't love crepe paper?
  

From the outside

Scowls:

• Again, lots of leftover boba. I'm not sure who I should blame this time.


• I don't like places that charge extra for boba. Who would go to a boba store and just order plain tea?
  

Most memorable bo-ment: Afterwards, we ducked into a fobby Asian store that sells socks that help you lose weight. I am not lying. Here:

Let's diet! With socks!

Overall rating: 9/10

--30--

BOBA BRIEFING (3)

Name: Phoenix Food Boutique

Address: 1709 Nogales St., Rowland Heights, CA 91748. Other locations in Alhambra, LA, Irvine, Arcadia, San Gabriel, Pasadena.

Phone: (626) 810-8988

Web site: www.phoenixfoodboutique.com

Date visited: Saturday, Aug. 25, 2007

Goes by: This is complicated, partly because it isn't what most people consider "normal" boba. In fact, I went back and forth about whether to blog about this place at all. Obviously, I didn't think that hard. They use regular tapioca (the little kind you find in tapioca pudding) and fresh fruit chopped up in little pieces so you can suck them up the fat straw. Moreover, drinks are coconut milk-based, not tea. Told ya it was complicated.

Price: $2.95

Form: Fruit drink, tropical drink. All in coconut milk.

Flavors: Check online menu

Hot/Cold: Cold

Flavors tried: Mixed fruit (watermelon, melon, mango); mango; taro

Mango tropical drink

Lid style: Hard plastic, pre-poked

Smiles: They definitely get brownie (boba?) points for uniqueness.

• If you like coconut milk, I think you'll really enjoy this. It's light, sweet and refreshing.

• Sometimes, it's nice to branch out from the same old milk tea.

• I'd never really thought about what a novel idea it is to suck up actual pieces of fruit with a straw. Don't you think this would be a really clever way to trick children into eating fruit?
  

Scowls:

• They were a little rude when asking us to move out of the way when we were standing by the register waiting for our drinks. If you want us to move, then make our drinks faster!

• Mango and taro work really well in this concoction because they're firm and retain their texture in liquid, but the watermelon gets mushy.
  

Most memorable bo-ment: Marveling at their gorgeous mochi. (You have to keep clicking the image until you see pastel-colored balls made of sweet rice flour.) For more about mochi, click here.

Overall rating: 8.5/10

Flying boba

Since I've been spending considerable time on planes lately, I got to wondering:

• Do you think airlines will ever serve boba?
• Do you think airports (in the States) will ever serve boba?

I think that if an airline were to venture into this territory, they should start with flights between LA and San Francisco/San Jose. Think about that demand!

And if it didn't take off (ha, ha) I would singlehandedly support them.

Bo-baw

Boston, Mass. - A brief stint in Baw-ston proved QUITE fruitful in the quest for good boba. Boston Tea Stop has been in Harvard Square for about 2.5 years, after replacing what used to be a Lollicup. And here, boba goes by its God-give name: boba. After a summer of listening to people call it "bubble tea," it was like going back home!

BOBA BRIEFING
Name: Boston Tea Stop
Address: 54 JFK St., Cambridge, MA 02138 (Harvard Square)
Phone: (617) 945-0017
Date visited: Sunday, Aug. 19, 2007
Goes by: Boba
Price: $3.15 - $4.00
Form: Milk tea, tea, infusion milk tea (basically flavored milk tea), ice blended drinks, juice. You can substitute jelly for boba, or do 1/2 boba, 1/2 jelly.
Flavors: About 70. Jelly flavors: lychee and mango

Menu

Hot/cold: Both
Flavors tried: Milk tea, yogurt infusion milk tea, almond infusion milk tea

Milk tea


Yogurt infusion milk tea

Lid style: Sealed plastic wrap
Smiles: Where do I begin?

• Taste, texture and proportion of tea:boba are pretty darn near perfect.
  
• The yogurt infusion milk tea is boba-tastic. It's exactly like Yoduly, the miniature Asian drinks that all of us ABC kids used to freeze to make slush. Yum!
  
• They call their hot milk tea "hottie." Hottie!
  
• They sell Boston Tea Stop T-shirts for $10.50 and mugs for $3.50.
• It's always nice enjoying boba with folks who understand boba: my old Berkeley buddies and kindergarten-through-HS buddy Tiff (also an MIT genius).
• Wi-fi
• Given its proximity to several campuses, it gets lots of traffic from college students.
  

Scowls:

• Their Web site is down. That's all I got. Seriously.
  

Most memorable bo-ment(s):




Overall rating: 9.5/10

Disapproval!

San Jose, Calif. - Now that I'm back in boba land for a few days, I feel immobilized by indecision. Do I go to ALL the boba places? Should I stick to Cupertino? What about Berkeley? And Oakland? And SAN FRANCISCO? I need to strategize.

My mom, on my boba blog:
"Ni you ne me wu liao, mah?"
Translation: "Are you really that pathetically bored?"

Maybe I should invest in a boba chain store. That way, at least I'd be supporting my own stock.