Thursday, May 19, 2005

Hey look, it's kumera & QQ in my teacup!

There we were, two girls in Chatswood, looking for a place to sit and have a drink. There really isn't that many of a place that we could head to especially since the shopping centres were already closed. And we were picky, very picky in fact. So that was no thanks to both Starbucks and Gloria Jeans. No thanks to the usual cafe too. We were after something hot that's not coffee. And no Hong Kong Tea Restaurants too.

With everything outed, there was only one place we could head to: Cha for Tea, a tea house chain of the famous Taiwanese tea merchant - Ten Ren. Cha for Tea serves everything makes with tea.

♥ tabeshimashita @ Cha For Tea on 14 May 2005
Ten Ren Cha For Tea - A Glass of Kumera & Pearls (QQ)
♥ Kumera & QQ in my teacup!
It was indeed hard to pick from the menu which has an extensive list of tea-related items. There were the proper chinese tea, milktea (hot/cold), fruit/fusion tea, tea noodle, tea puddings, tea jellies, basically just tea-everything. We decided to order a pot of kumera (sweet potato) QQ milk tea. The reason for the choice was simple, we were just curious about how the shop would serve QQ (or commonly known as pearls, which in actual fact is a type of starchy balls) and kumera in a tea pot ie. how can you pour kumera and QQ out from the tiny opening of a tea pot.

Ten Ren Cha for Tea - Kumera QQ Milk Tea
♥ A pot of Kumera QQ Milk Tea (A$9.50)
I was thinking something like serving the kumera and QQ on the sides with a pot of hot milk tea (half-sugar) and I was pretty much right about it except that the kumera and QQ were not served on the side. They were placed in the teacup.

The kumera was very sweet and the QQ were too soft for my liking. Lucky we ordered the milk tea half-sugar else the whole thing would be overly sweet. I was really tempted to order it without sugar which I usually do when I order bubble tea. Many would look at me with a "are-you-sure-this-is-nice" face when I made the order. To be honest, I have never really fancy Cha for Tea. I guess people come here for the novelty side. At least I do. And I am not liking the high price tag at all. A$9.50 for a tiny pot of milk tea!?

And you think the high price tag is because we are having bubble tea in Australia? You are absolutely wrong. Cha for Tea or more like Ten Ren is the Chanel/LV/Prada to the tea drinking world, at least in Taiwan it is. I had been to Cha for Tea in Taipei and a large takeaway Taro (yam) QQ milk tea cost almost just as much as it does in Australia. It was NT$90, about A$3.80. You think this is cheap? No way! Because you can get a large (750ml) of QQ milktea for as cheap as NT$20 (A$0.85).

I have to admit though, the milk tea (in Taipei that is) was nice and smooth with a aromatic fragrant. But I didn't enjoy the service. I ordered QQ milk tea without sugar (FYI, their QQ was overly sweet) and the man serving me was really sarcastic by talking loudly to his other customers that those who ordered sugarless milktea were silly because all the fats and calories were in fact in the QQ themselves so it would be useless and stupid to order sugarless QQ milktea. Gosh, I was so surprised at what I heard and it was aiming directly at me too! Geez, some people just don't get that it wasn't the calories but the sweetness that's causing the problem!

Oh. Oops. Sorry for the small whinging session up there. Back to where I was, I had also had Cha For Tea shaved ice (A$7.50) long time ago and we all thought that the shaved ice we made ourselves at home beat Cha for Tea's shaved ice both on price and on taste! I do have a pic of the shaved ice but I kinda misplaced it somewhere. I will post the pics up when I found it.

Cha For Tea
389 Victoria Avenue
Chatswood NSW 2067
Australia
Tel: +61 2 98847668
Fax: +61 2 98847686