A Teatime Treat at Houtong Tea House

This is quite an admission, but this week was my first bubble tea experience. I have travelled throughout Asia and never been tempted. When Leeds Living asked me to review Houtong Tea House I invited a friend who has travelled in China and would not be a bubble tea virgin.

I now realise that I may have missed out. I enjoyed my drink but wondered how much more refreshing it would have been in the humid cities of South East Asia.

We arrived just before five pm. There was a short wait whilst others were served. Just as well. It took us a while to decide which options we wanted to try. The first thing that I notice is the variety and flexibility of the menu. There is a choice of tea bases: ruby black, oolong or green tea. I’m not a fan of black tea. Yes, I know that’s sacrilege to some in Yorkshire, and was pleased to see the lighter oolong tea offered. The menu was then based around milk (vegan alternatives are available), fruit and specials.

The specials involve chocolate and coffee as well as tea. I had been tempted to try the Mudflip special, ‘topped with cloud cream and caramelised brown sugar’, but the previous customer had bagged the last of the brown sugar topping. Instead, I opted for a milk tea, whilst my friend selected a fruit version.

My choice was the Caramel Milk Tea, and my friend opted for Strawberry Green Tea and Apple Boba. Both drinks were light and refreshing, with clear definable taste. The tea base is important. My fear had been that the concoctions would be too sweet and overwhelm the tea but this was not the case. However, it is the bubbles that make bubble tea.

The bubbles, or boba, come in different forms. My milk tea came with tapioca bubbles but I added some lychee popping boba. My friend had apple boba but also added passion fruit popping boba.

Bubble tea originated in Taiwan in the 1980s but is now endemic across South East Asia and common in Britain. Here, authenticity is maintained by importing ingredients directly from Taiwan.

So why had I never tried bubble tea before?. I am not a big fan of jelly and had presumed that all the coloured balls on show were jelly. While I do like tapioca, these pearl balls can be daunting unless you’re hungry as well as thirsty. Fortunately, it had been some hours since lunch and a tapioca and milk concoction was fine on this occasion.

Houtong Tea shop offers a variety of ‘toppings’ for you to add to your tea: tapioca, caramel, fruit jelly and popping boba. It was the addition of the popping boba that made my drink for me. These were a million miles away from the jelly I had imagined. They might become my new food craze. You suck a bubble up the wide straw, it plops into your mouth and then bursts when you poke it with your tongue. The outer shell dissolves away and your tongue is washed with fruit juice. The tastes were natural, unsweetened and intense.

This is not the only bubble tea shop in Leeds. However, this one has the potential to become a café where people will meet and spend time together. We had to find seating elsewhere to consume our beverages, but in March it is intended that the upstairs will open with space to seat fourteen.

In the meantime, the shop is doing a brisk trade in take-aways. People were stopping by on their way back from shopping or work and departing with bags of beverages to take home. I could imagine this being a pleasant after dinner treat instead of dessert. We were impressed by their sealing machine.

Every drink is freshly and custom made and then sealed into a completely leak proof cup.

I am a convert. We agreed that Houtong (the name comes from a cat village near Taipei) is a welcome addition to the refreshment scene in Leeds City Centre. Look out for their cat insignia when walking through Thornton Arcade.

https://www.houtongteahouse.co.uk

Photographs by Debbie Rolls.

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