The Advocate tries bubble tea flavors

Gloria Saepharn

Bubble tea can turn out to be gross or it can taste absolutely divine, but I guess it all depends on how it’s made and your preference.

In our bubble tea review, we attempted to figure out whether we enjoyed the different flavors of bubble tea that were laid out in front of us. We had coconut with tapioca pearls, taro with lychee jelly, strawberry with rainbow jelly, and honeydew with green apple jelly. Throughout the review, I continued to laugh and laugh, but was determined to figure out which I liked best. Yes, I’ve had bubble tea before, but not from where these were made.

The one I liked the most was taro, because I enjoy taro-flavored bubble tea and it’s even better with lychee jelly (at least that’s my opinion). Going down the list, I enjoyed coconut second-best, honeydew third, and strawberry the least. Personally, I don’t like bubble tea that’s concentrated with sugar, because it takes away the desired flavor. I’m not exactly sure where these drinks were made, but strawberry tasted awful – it was bad to the point where I thought it tasted slimy, powdery, and a bit like play-doh. Overall, I honestly do enjoy bubble tea, but these flavors just weren’t what I was expecting. Luckily, you do have an option of reducing the amount of sugar, ice, or jellies, that the drink maker uses – just ask!

Adam Elwell

If you like tea with chunks in it, then bubble tea is probably for you. If you have the palate of a human, though, you’re going to realize as soon as it hits your mouth, that this is entirely disgusting – although you probably could have figured that out by looking at it, too. It’s basically a syrup with “bubbles” thrown in, so they could sell it to community college kids under the premise that its a novelty, instead of a disgustingly Americanized Frankenstein of a dish on par with fried mayonnaise.

Matana McIntire

Okay, all you readers: I’ve had bubble tea before. It’s delicious, in my opinion – except, well, I’ve only ever had my one favorite flavor in the past (green apple, all the way). When I participated in the Advocate’s bubble tea review, boy, was I in for a surprise. Let me tell you, not all bubble tea is the bee’s knees.

I’ll start off with my least favorite, coconut flavor with tapioca. Normally, coconut is a pretty cool flavor for me, but this bubble tea was a bit too heavy and milky for what I usually consider a fresh taste. Then, the extremely chewy and slimy tapioca that followed? Nah, man, not down for that. So the coconut bubble tea is at a firm last place in the rankings.

Strawberry with rainbow jellies (whatever flavor that is) are next in the order of dislike-to-like. The strawberry flavor is not hard to get right, and it just wasn’t right for me this time. It had a very odd aftertaste and tasted very artificial altogether, and the jellies just seemed like something for your teeth to chew. Very blah.

Taro, the purple bubble tea, was runner-up for my favorite. It has a very nice, lightly sweet flavor that I can’t put my finger on, but I enjoyed a lot. Most other flavors we tried were in your face, where as taro was subdued and refreshing. I would definitely buy taro for myself in the future.

However, my favorite ended up being honeydew with green apple jellies (hey, I love what I know). Maybe it’s just my weird idea that green food is good, but honeydew really seemed like something I could see myself drinking. Yeah, it was really sweet, but I like that. To me, it was the most distinct flavor and in the end that’s what won out.

Ivy Davis

I’ve had bubble tea before – some flavors are delicious while others are painful. There are a few things I really like about bubble tea. After taking a huge slurp, you end up with weird jellies, popping jellies, or boba in your mouth. Things to do in this moment are: a) chomp on the fish egg-like jellies, or pop them in between your teeth and feel the goo spill out; b) line all the jellies up in front of your teeth and give a big smile to your friends, displaying boba-like gnarled teeth.

As for flavors, I prefer lavender, coconut, and my personal favorite, lychee. However, after our bubble tea testing, I can only confirm that I truly hate fruity flavors. Drinking the strawberry and honeydew flavors was like letting someone cut out my tongue. The sweetness of those drinks was horrifying; but, you know, everyone has their differences. I encourage people to try bubble tea. Whatever you do, though, do not mix flavors.. after four different bubble teas, I wanted to hurl.

Emily Wintringham

Normally, I love bubble tea; however, I did not fancy any of the flavors I tried at the Advocate bubble tea trial – they all were proven guilty, under my jurisdiction. First, all of them tasted like medicine, from a range of Pepto-Bismol to cherry cough syrup. Also, the jellies made me sense as though I was eating human cartilage. I don’t know what that would really taste like from experience, but now I can imagine.

Tommy Stewart

Yup, I tried the bubble tea. I would rather take shots of rat poison than do that again. The first one I tasted was coconut and tapioca — it wasn’t bad and it definitely felt like a cold drink I would enjoy during the summer. The second one, taro with lychee, was really bland and had a lot of choking hazards. Honeydew with green apple was terrible and viciously attacked all my taste buds and tasted like a dead hummingbird. The strawberry with rainbow jelly was like a vibrant strawberry, tart and sour, but then rainbow jelly came in like a morning dump of trash that’s filling your mouth. That’s when I had enough and released the beast of puke from my stomach into the Dairy Queen parking lot.