Available at Family Mart locations across Malaysia
Price: RM6.90
Malaysians are seriously rabid for brown sugar boba tea – they can’t get enough of the stuff! Japanese konbini chain Family Mart is finally getting a piece of this lucrative bubble with a bargain-priced version of the sweet, molasses-ey treat.
According to the poster, Family Mart’s Brown Sugar Bubble Milk looks like many of the other milk teas you can slurp in this city. Whereas some high-end chains like The Alley or Tiger Sugar price their teas at RM12+, Family Mart sells theirs for almost half the price at RM6.90.
What a dream: we could halve our bubble tea budget and drink twice as much for the same price! An exciting idea for boba lovers, but if you ever thought that what you get would match the picture, you have a lot to learn about life.
It’s been a while since I’ve been disappointed by a pearl milk tea – or Family Mart for that matter – but this was bad. Staff have to prepare it right behind the counter, so it quickly becomes clear that you’re mostly getting a cup of 2% milk with ice. The brown sugar ended up being a few paltry squirts that didn’t end up flavouring the milk much at all. The milk was barely sweet, so here I am, a grown ass woman drinking milk out of a sippy cup. I’m doubtful that there’s even any tea in this, as the advertisement cleverly avoids calling this “bubble tea” or “milk tea.” The bubbles were the worst: tasteless, inconsistent and nasty. Many times I got a mouthful of hard, mealy pearls; other times I got what felt like disintegrated pearl goo flooding my tongue.
Family Mart’s attempt is not even worth its low price, in my opinion. Yes, this is “value-priced” bubble milk, and it certainly tastes like it. They skimp on the brown sugar and the bubbles are shit. They don’t have the roasted tea flavour that expensive varieties do, or any flavour really. It’s cheap, but to be honest, the price of Family Mart’s bubble milk isn’t that much cheaper from the much better Tealive version. If I’m getting a bare-bones brown sugar pearl milk, why not get that one?
I love you Family Mart, but this is gonna have to be a no from me.
