Project 30: Me Time is Milk Tea Time

September 3, 2011 8 Comments

Good Me Time with Milk Tea Time

I can’t believe it’s been almost a week in Manila already. My life has basically been a blur. Or mostly in a standstill as I seem to spend most of my time on the road, which is a good 4 to 5 hours a day. Traffic isn’t usually this bad, but since it’s been raining almost non-stop (or conveniently during rush hours) plus, as most people have tweeted, the start of the Christmas season (We are suckers for the Christmas holidays and the Christmas carols start playing on the radio as early as September). If you’ve been following me on Twitter, I admit I have been ranting A LOT. Yes, welcome back to the chaos that is Manila!

This month is all about closure for me. I’ve been basically quite busy with errands and meet ups with family and friends, whom I will be leaving behind very soon. Despite this crazy schedule, I still manage to score some Me Time especially in between commutes. But I’ve realized that my Me Time isn’t true to it’s definition. I always have a food companion. And this time it’s been Milk Tea :-)

The Milk Tea craze has hit the Manila foodie scene quite hard lately. Of course, I’ve tried almost all of the popular Milk Tea places: Serenitea (a humble but successful local chain), Happy Lemon (aTaiwanese franchise) and my recent favorite, Cha Time (another Taiwanese franchise).

To be honest, Filipinos are not natural tea drinkers. I think that we are more fruit juice lovers. But since a large part of our heritage is influenced by our neighboring countries like China (including Hong Kong) and Taiwan (we have quite a number of Chinese immigrants as well who have been naturalized and are now known as the Filipino-Chinese), milk tea has easily made it’s way into our foodie lives.

I know (with such limited knowledge c/o Google) Milk Tea houses, the Taiwanese kind, are not a plenty in Dubai. So I will surely miss my all access pass to this well-loved liquid dessert and night cap of mine. Often drank before the painstaking 1-2 hour (only an 8-10KM stretch!) commute home. I will miss the answer to my flitting cravings – the wide selection of milk teas with a myriad of colors, flavors and textures: pale violet, golden, green, toasty, creamy, velvety, crunchy, chewy, fruity, tangy, floral and more. Sigh. Such variety is the answer to the million thoughts per second that go through my mind during Me time. My gazillion thoughts are then rudely interrupted by the slurping of the remains of a once full tea tumbler. Me Time here in Manila will come to an end very quickly. I think I shall get all the Me Time with Milk Tea I can get while I am here. When I’m in Dubai, it’s back to We time with The Husband :-)

Milk Tea: 1 of 30 of my favorite food stuff. 29 more to go!

Delirious about Delicious,

Didi

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  • http://accordingtodina@wordpress.com dina

    hmm… Does it take like ordinary tea? Curious!!! come back soon Didi!!!

    • Didi

      @ Dina: This one in the picture – Taro Milk Tea – doesn’t taste like ordinary tea. It’s liquid Taro with a velvety texture (some people find it too scratchy on their tongue and throat) and some taro bits. the yellow thingy inside is egg pudding :-)

      But there are milk tea drinks that taste like ordinary tea. they use different tea blends with milk and include sago (tapioca pearls), nata de coco (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nata_de_coco), red beans, pudding and more :-)

  • roshan

    do you think chatime will work in dubai?

    • Didi

      @ Roshan: There are actually a few milk tea places similar to Chatime here. But I’ve never had the chance to visit.

      Honestly, the food scene is very competitive and the market is very fragmented with very diverse palates because of the population composition. Unlike in the Philippines, where bulk of us are Filipinos, the palates are quite similar. It will be a challenge for Chatime to survive unless they corner a sizeable market base. Take for example, Bonchon Chicken, which has only one branch here, closed down recently. So IMHO, it will be a bigger risk for Chatime here.

      Are you interested to bring Chatime here?

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