Pearl Milk Tea

I can still remember the first zip of pearl milk tea I had in my life. It was a revelation and the starting point of a life long relationship. I love pearl milk tea and especially from the locale tea shop near Wens appartment in Taichung.
Taiwan is full of tea shops. They lie as pearls on a string along every major road in Taiwan. Taiwan is naturally a lot warmer than Denmark, so you need a bigger intake of fluid. But even taking this into account, it puzzles me, that so many people can survive from selling tea.


The shops have a huge menu card from where you can choose among hundreds of types of tea. Warm or cold, with or without milk, pearls or not, from north or south or east or west....or....

I always choose pearl milk tea. It is normal black tea with milk which is iced down with much ice cubes and last but certainly not least, huge pearls at the bottom of the drink.

Pearl are made from a winegummi kind of substance and you eat them by zipping them up through the straw. It is a lot better than it sounds!!!!

The local tea shop has many employee, always minimum 3-4 young people there. As I do not live in Taichung, only visit 2-3 times a year for a week, I am not a regular. Nevertheless they always greet me very warmly and ask how life is in Singapore, and if Wen is with me here etc. They know who I am! On the other hand, how many white Danes visit this shop, in an alley in Taichung?


One day I was there to get my daily dose of Pearl tea they were in the middle of producing sugar liquid, that they use to sweeten the tea. The were handling huge long sugar tubes. One little girl was chopping them up using a machete knife almost bigger than her, other were forcing them through a machine that squeezed the liquid out and other were filtering the liquid. It was like a small local factory... No wonder their tea is so great, when everything is made by hand from the ground up...


Even when all ingredients are ready, preparing a cup of pearl milk tea takes many processes and much time - I think love is inserted along the way...

Look at this machine, it is fantastic. It closes the cup airtight and you can transfer it as long as you want. Once you want to drink, you force your straw through. This is why straws have a peak in one end....