Miss Tea Time is the latest addition to the Sault’s bubble tea scene.
The locally-owned establishment on Great Northern Road had a soft launch July 11.
Bubble tea — also known as pearl milk tea, bubble milk tea, tapioca milk tea, boba tea, or boba — is served as a sweet, cold refreshing drink.
“Bubble tea is Taiwanese. It’s often thought that the bubbles in the tea come from the tapioca pearls in the tea but it’s actually the bubbles that are created when you shake the tea,” said Imee Yuen, Miss Tea Time owner in a conversation with SooToday.
Those bubbles give the tea a thick and tasty texture.
“It became popular in the early 2000s in the United States, then it became known in Canada,” Yuen said, bubble tea first appearing in Taiwan in the 1980s.
“It starts off with a base of black tea, green or oolong tea. We use a milk powder and add cane sugar, add ice, shake it all together to create the bubbles. We put tapioca balls at the bottom so that it sweetens the drink and gives it a chewy texture and top it with Oreo toppings.”
Yuen said she learned of bubble tea-making from franchises before launching her own Miss Tea Time.
Miss Tea Time offers iced tea, smoothies and lemonade in a wide variety of flavours.
The establishment also sells halo-halo, a cool dessert that originated in the Philippines.
Halo-halo contains ice cream, milk, fruit and different flavours of jam and types of beans.
Yuen said customers have enjoyed dropping in at Miss Tea Time to enjoy a tall cup of bubble tea as a cool treat at lunch or after dinner as a takeaway or for dine in enjoyment.
Miss Tea Time staff, Yuen said, start preparing bubble tea ingredients about two hours before opening time each business day.
Other bubble tea establishments in the Sault include Freshly Squeezed Bubble Tea in Station Mall and Sushi & Boba in Churchill Plaza.
