#shiny tea

I'll repost this old video I posted on my old blog I deleted: Black tea with Luster dust looks like a Sun!

Shiny Tea at Aberdeen Square

Shiny Tea is like Hanlin Tea House‘s scout for Vancouver’s bubble tea market. Back in 2014 Shiny Tea opened its first location in Richmond’s new Aberdeen Square. It soon opened its Crystal Mall location in Burnaby and downtown location in the international village. They were one of the first few stores to enter Aberdeen Square and survived until today in this low traffic mall.

Strength: Hanli…

These days, it seems like you can find a bubble tea shop on every corner, and especially when considering the Metrotown area, there’s no shortage of them. Shiny Tea is apparently endorsed by a “ Mr. Tsung-Ho Tu “ of Taiwan who created Taiwan’s Original Milk Tea. I’m sure that means something to someone, so I gave this shop a go. The folks running it are probably some of the friendliest in the whole Crystal Mall as they’re not only patient, but are actually very pleasant to interact with!

Shiny Tea - Tie Guan Yin Macchiato

(Location: Oakland, CA)

Shiny Tea’s first West Coast location offers the same quality tea as what it provided in Flushing. The tieguanyin tea is on point and super potent. However, the creama falls short. It’s a bit too heavy and thick, and not sufficiently salty. When it’s sipped or perfectly blended, it does offer a nice texture to complement the tea. However, that doesn’t mean it has the complexity of excellent milk foam/sea salt/creama.

Shiny Tea - White Pearl Milk Tea

(Location: Oakland, CA)

Shiny Tea’s signature white pearl milk tea almost succeeds in being a great drink, but the tea got overshadowed by the white pearls. While the tea is sweet and flavorful, the texture was a bit too light for me. With that being said, the white pearls that only come in tiny pearl form were great. They were wonderfully chewy and qq in ways that made them the star of this show. Solid effort overall.

Shiny Tea – Pu’Er Milk Tea with White Tiny Boba

(Location: Flushing, Queens, NY)

This milk tea is very, very unique. I always wondered why milk teas only regularly incorporate three kinds of teas (oolong, black, green), and every other tea is kind of a specialty. I’ve never encountered pu’er as a milk tea base before, and this is the right choice. It has a unique, longan-esque taste that is strengthened by the thickened texture and creaminess of the non-dairy creamer. And unlike Gong Cha’s white pearls, these white pearls are actually tapioca, and are well-cooked.