Strawberry Pistachio Milk Tea (いちごピスタチオミルクティー) – Gong Cha

Today my boyfie and I are going back to my place, and so I do have to get boba since this is our last day in Sapporo and for the bus ride home, ha! Gong cha has another new drink, which is probably another seasonal but really no idea for how long. They really like their seasonals huh.

So the new drink is their holiday/Christmas drink, as it has strawberry and pistachio, aka red and green. It is also supposed to have oolong tea, thought we’ll see how the taste of that appears. I do like strawberries, though I don’t order a strawberry drink that often, and pistachios are the only nut I eat, but I’ve never had a pistachio drink before. Oh, also Japan really likes pistachio snacks for some reason, as so many snacks and chocolates are pistachio flavored. The actual bags of pistachios are super small though, as with everything in Japan.

Overall I was actually really pleasantly surprised with the drink. I do mostly taste the strawberry from the strawberry sauce, but it’s not too sweet and very natural tasting. It also doesn’t just taste like a strawberry milk, which I did have yesterday, but a strawberry milky drink with a bit of a subtle taste of something in the back. I know it’s supposed to be a oolong milk tea with pistachio sauce, but neither really stands out flavor wise. The strawberry milk pudding that comes with it is also very good, and reminds me of a strawberry version of the mango pudding my dad used to bring back from Taiwan. Boba again is just right, bouncy, chewy, and a little sweet.

It does come with a milk foam topping, but since it’s on top and there’s kind of barely any, I’m not sure if it’s there for anything but aesthetics.

Details: Strawberry Pistachio Milk Tea; medium; less sugar; pearl; from Gong Cha (Sapporo Apia)