Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Fro-yo and Pearl Tea


Fro-yo girl here. Recently, I posed the following question: “You're in the mood for fro-yo but there isn't any around. What do you have instead?”

The options included ice cream and gelato (which are the most similar to fro-yo), baked goods (cake, cupcakes, cookies), Asian desserts (egg puffs, boba tea) and a healthier option (smoothies). Surprisingly, boba tea was the overwhelming favorite substitute for fro-yo, capturing 58% of the votes. Gelato was a distant third with 17% of the votes. The cold desserts/snacks were more popular with readers.

At first I thought that most of my readers are Asian (and that could be true) but then why aren’t egg puffs more popular? Boba/pearl tea isn’t healthy but it is refreshing (like fro-yo). I’ve certainly seen the crowd move from Quickly on Irving St. to Tuttimelon (which prompted Quickly to come up with their own fro-yo). I’m still not sure to what extent the results are based on the Asianness of voters.

I’ve compiled a list of Bay Area shops that offer both fro-yo and boba/pearl tea. Maybe someone should create milk tea flavored fro-yo? I’ve seen (and tried) milk tea gelato.

You know you love me. X0 X0, fro-yo girl.

* HELLO DESSERTS: 1698 Hostetter Rd, San Jose, CA 95131
* HONEYBERRY: 3488 El Camino Real, Santa Clara, CA 95052
* LOVE BERRY: Winston Way (Stonestown Galleria), San Francisco, CA 94132
* POCO CAFÉ: 1688 Hostetter Rd, San Jose, CA 95131
* ROCK IT SWIRL: 2810 Diamond St, San Francisco, CA 94014
* TRENDY BEAN CAFÉ: 1054 Kiely Blvd, Santa Clara, CA 95051
* TUTTIMELON: 601 Broadway, San Francisco, CA 94133
* YUMYGURT: 650 Central Ave Ste G, Alameda, CA 94501
* YOLATEA: 600 Main St #F, Pleasanton, CA 94566

4 comments:

bananas. said...

is that the tapioca stuff? obviously, i didn't vote. lol. if it is, i tried that once a long long time ago and OMG it was delicious!

Lolia S said...

Yes! Tapioca, aka pearl tea, boba tea, and bubble tea. You should get another one since it's been so long :-)

Anonymous said...

any news on when the self serve Tuttimelon at Irving will open?

Lolia S said...

I'm almost certain it won't be opening this weekend since they'll be busy with the Fairfield Tuttimelon opening.