The latest craze for bubble tea these days is brown sugar pearls with fresh milk. I heard about this the first time from a blogger I was following and it was a huge thing in Taiwan. The craze has since came to Singapore and you can see many bubble tea shops introducing their versions of the brown sugar bubble with fresh milk.
My first cup of brown sugar bubble with fresh milk is from Liho. Since taking over Gong Cha, Liho has been growing a steady following with the introduction of their cheese flavoured drinks and fruit tea. The comparison today will purely be on the brown sugar bubble with fresh milk series.
Liho offers 4 selection of the brown sugar bubble, one with fresh milk, one with chocolate milk, one with matcha and another with avocado. A medium size will cost SGD 3.90 and a large will be SGD 4.90.
The milk used by Liho is the Farmhouse fresh milk and the brown sugar bubbles are kept warm in a pot. The bubble are very soft when they are warm and get more chewy as it cools down with the iced milk. The brown sugar is very sweet and when mixed together it taste very balanced.
Stars: 4.3/5
R&B tea is owned by a Taiwanese couple who started their business in China and their drinks got really popular. Their most popular drink is the giant fruit tea. They only have 2 outlets with the more popular one in Marina Square.
They have the brown sugar series as well which is not on the main menu, in addition, they have a different version where they top it up with a cheese foam and burnt sugar topping. They only have the medium size at $3.80 for the fresh milk series but 2 sizes for the brown sugar bubble with milk tea series.
The drink came in this extremely cute cup with a rounded bottom and a frog cap. The brown sugar bubbles were quite mashed up but turned chewy after leaving them in the cold milk for a while. The milk used here is from Meiji and is much thicker than the one from Liho. The brown sugar pearls also has a caramel taste to it and is not just pure sweetness like the one from Liho. You can taste the deep flavours of the brown sugar used.
Stars: 4.6/5
My last test for this post is this Muyoo store at basement of Raffles City Mall which is opened by a Singapore duo who promises to offer a healthy version of cheese tea for bubble tea.
They have kinds of brown sugar drinks here which is the brown sugar dirty drink, strawberry dirty drink and the Mango dirty drink. There is only the medium sized drink offered here for this series at SGD 3.90
The drink came in a cute rounded bottom cup as well and a sealed top. The milk used was the Greenfields milk which I found a little too light and flat. The brown sugar bubbles were also a little bland so once I mixed in the milk, I could hardly taste the brown sugar at all. The bubbles were chewy enough in texture but lacking in taste.
Stars: 2.5/5
For the first round test, my favourite and the winner with the best tasting brown sugar bubble with fresh milk drink is from R&B tea. Firstly the milk is thick and creamy and the bubbles had a deep caramelised brown sugar taste which was missing from the others. Instead of just sweetness, you can taste the goodness of the brown sugar. Next up I learnt that KOI has also joined the craze of the brown sugar bubble tea but only in exclusive outlets.
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