Choosing between milk tea flavors can be daunting, but search no more, as Milk Tea Lab lets customers mix their own drink for an enjoyable, epicurean experience.
Milk Tea Lab is a new tea shop in South San Jose, 18 minutes from campus by car, that’s run by Kaman Loi and M.G. Ha, who co-own the shop.
Milk Tea Lab was opened in August by Loi and Ha with a concept to revolutionize the tea shop trend.
Instead of ordering custom flavors and sweetness level for your drinks at the register, you can do it yourself.
“A lot of milk tea places don’t let you make tea from scratch so the idea of the milk tea hot pot was to let customers do everything themselves,” Ha said.
The hot pot is a great invention and has the potential to introduce
first-time drinkers to the milk tea craze because they experiment with flavors and make it their own.
“I definitely like that we have a do-it-yourself in the form of milk tea, but I hope the base tea can have more flavors than just jasmine, black, and oolong tea,” Leanne Dinh, a 19-year-old
De Anza College student, said.
Customers are provided test tubes filled with flavors such as strawberry, lychee or honeydew, as well as cream, sugar and a pot filled with the base tea of your choosing.
The employees take their time explaining to customers how to put together the ingredients into the milk tea.
I was recommended jasmine tea by co-owner Ha, who told me that it’s one of the safer choices to see if I would like the milk tea hot pot method.
Full pot volume is approximately 14 scoops which can serve up to three people and can take a while to finish, so customers are welcome to take leftovers in paper cups.
Milk Tea Lab serves small bites for all diets including pescatarians and vegans.
Overall, Milk Tea Lab has a unique invention for those in San Jose to try out and has great potential to be a popular spot.
