When I spent a summer in Taipei, I got addicted to this stuff, piling on 7 kilos in 7 weeks! Why is it so fattening? Well, the main variety is known as 珍珠奶茶 or 'pearl milk tea'. The 'pearls' in question are made from tapioca, which is normally a white powder made from cassava root. In drinks they're formed into black or dark brown balls less than 1cm in diameter. Like beancurd and bamboo shoots, 珍珠 are another essentially flavourless ingredient, added for texture. I don't really know how they're made, only that boiling is involved, and that they're pretty starchy.
That's not the end of it though. The milk tea itself is made from an alchemist's lab of ingredients, including some suspiciously garish powdered flavourings, condensed milk, and a dark tea mixture. Calorific! It all makes for a filling combination, and a large cup of the stuff could easily substitute a medium-sized meal.
This is the main brand in Harbin. As far as I can tell it holds a monopoly on the market. The characters are 快の客. 快 means 'quick' but holds the additional suggestion of 'happiness'. 客 means 'guest' or 'customer'. の is the Japanese possessive particle, normally read as 之 in Chinese. For some reason, the small print on the cup renders の as 的 which is the commonly-used version of the somewhat archaic 之. Whatever word used, the meaning is 'Happiness's Customer' or 'Customer of Happiness'.The English name is 'Koco' which implies that the の is ignored. The way the middle character is written smaller than the others on the cup seems to support this idea. In that case, the name is the much less appealing 'Quick Customer'. Maybe the lesson is not to read too much into names!
Every milk tea shop I've ever seen has had the exact same pictures pasted on the counter and on to the walls. The two drinks pictured are 玉米浓汁 ('jade rice thick juice' which is a dessert-style sweet-corn soup) and 水蜜桃奶茶 ('water honey peach milk tea' which is the more straightforward honey peach milk tea). Just underneath you can see the characters for 木瓜奶茶 ('wood melon milk tea' referring to papaya milk tea).The not-unattractive girl serving me thought I was taking a photo of her. I felt stupid enough with my camera out at a tea stall, so I scurried away with my drink before she could say anything.
From looking at the posters you would be forgiven for thinking that the shop offers a cornucopia of cups of different shapes and sizes, each one perfectly suited to your beverage. In fact, every single drink is served in an identical plastic cup.
Strangely, the photos are the same whichever shop you might be in (whether a small family-run shop to the largest branch of the largest chain). This to me suggests a far-reaching national conspiracy - a unified New World Order of beverage shops. Another suggestion is that the concept of Intellectual Property Rights has yet to be fully embraced here.
I ordered a papaya pearl milk tea, only to be told that they'd run out of pearls, so I substituted them for a crunchy fruit jelly instead. Apparently, papaya is not a suitable flavour for a man to drink. It's a widespread view and, depending on who you ask, it's because of papaya's nutritional properties (although this doesn't stop men from eating it in fruit form), or because the drink is a 'girly' colour. Sure enough, my drink was a nice orangey-peach colour.A so-called small cup is 3RMB (20p) and a large cup 5RMB (33p). In reality, the small cup is more than enough for all but the thirstiest desert island strandee at 500ml. The large cup is a frankly obscene 700ml or so of milky goodness. As I write this, I also notice that the economics of either the size or pricing system look to be way off.
After messing about with a bewildering array of little pots, taps, and ladles, the drink is put in a little cupholder in a big machine. A one-armed bandit style lever is yanked down (it's traditional to do this with excessive force), sealing on a film lid. Then the cup is shaken, making sure the magic is evenly distributed. Finally, the customer is handed an oversized straw (needed to pick up and drink/shoot the 珍珠), which he'll expertly pierce straight down through the centre of the lid.That's what's supposed to happen anyway. If that customer is me then the scene might be a bit more like this: I'll make several clumsy attempts at using my straw, achieving little more than putting tiny dents in the lid. A sizeable crowd of bystanders will then gather, calling up relatives, covering their children's eyes, and snapping photos of my struggle, before I succeed in unleashing a spray of drink into their faces. Then I'll sidle away, red-faced and with half a milk tea remaining. Maybe that's what the large size is for?
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