Tea Maru Latte (brown sugar boba) – Tea Maru

It’s officially been 12 days since I last had a drink, and a new record. Yay? Not yay? Anyway, today my sister started volunteering at her old art studio nearby the newly opened Tea Maru, which opened a few months ago. I’ve really been meaning to try it, and now it’s such a perfect occasion. I could really use a drink, both for temperature and energy purposes. 🙂

Man, the drinks on the menu all look so appetizing, but I chose the Tea Maru Latte because it’s the “named” drink, so figured I would go with that as a sort of base. The default is Four Seasons Tea, which is thought was interesting, since most places would usually do a black tea or maybe green tea for their signature milk tea. The Tea Maru Latte usually comes with mixed boba, though since I’m not that adventurous yet, I just subbed it with brown sugar boba. Speaking of substitutions, you can also sub the tea itself for their other teas: vintage blend, jasmine green, and roasted oolong. Basically, you can customize every part of the latte (though I’m sure other places will let you sub out other things) until it’s an entirely different drink…

Also on that topic, I looked around more on the online order form. The Tea Maru Latte itself costs $5.50, which includes essentially your choice of tea and choice of boba. In the Tea Latte section of the menu, you can choose among the aforementioned 4 tea types for a latte for $4.99. If you wanted to add boba to a tea latte that you could customize in the Tea Maru Latte it’s an additional $0.85. So technically, just changing the tea in the Tea Maru Latte already saves you some money when boba shops like to rack up their prices. The only way this hack wouldn’t work is if you ordered the Honey Latte (may try in the future) or the Ice Cream Tea (no plans to order at the moment). At first, this posed a personal mini problem in my head, as if I subbed the teas in the future, would all the posts be named Tea Maru Latte? In the end, I just resigned myself to this fact, because there would be no point in ordering the same drink if it could be priced lower. Post titles will just have to be slightly longer…besides, if I’m subbing boba, it’s already going to be longer anyway, since it’s a change.

On that note, on to the drink itself! Overall, a really nice and refreshing drink, and it tastes pretty good quality too. The Four Seasons tea tastes just like the one from Sunright, which I guess shouldn’t be too surprising. Very tea-y, but not bitter at all, and actually goes really well with the light flavor of the milk. Not a tea choice I would usually go for, but I actually really like it and it’s a nice change of pace from the classic flavors. I’m looking forward to trying the other teas from Tea Maru now!

As for the boba, I have to say it’s pretty unique. Even though it’s just brown sugar boba, for a first impression, it’s really dang good. First, there’s a lot, as when I swirled the straw I could see so much boba. When I sipped it, the boba texture itself is slightly on the stiffer side, but it’s not hard. It’s somehow kind of holds its structure while also giving such a satisfying chew. Usually I prefer my boba on the chewier, softer side, but this is really great as well. To add a final touch, you can actually taste the brown sugar in the boba itself. I’m not sure if they coated it in any syrup, but just from chewing it I could taste the toastiness and depth of flavor of the brown sugar in the boba.

Wow. I’d really want to try more drinks on the menu!

Details: Tea Maru Latte; 50% Sugar; No ice; with organic milk; with brown sugar boba; from Tea Maru (Irvine)