Enjoy Boba at Sharetea
Also, upcoming LV Rec Center Activities
We have a confession to make.
It makes me feel so un-cool to say it.
We’re obviously late to the party.
It’s almost 2021, and my wife and I just got around to having our first Boba drink at the Sharetea off of Linda Vista Road!
Okay, so we may not be cool! We readily admit it. We’ve never made a conscious effort to keep up with the latest food and beverage trends. Our discovery of new food is largely the result of accidental encounters, and rarely because of deliberate efforts to be on the cutting edge of hip cuisine. In our defense, however, we are not total food bumpkins. We do drink oat milk, we like Brussel sprouts, cauliflower as well as plant-based burgers, and I once ate a kale salad. We realize that because of our laid back approach to new food, we’ve missed out on a few interesting food items—for example, we’ve yet to eat avocado toast, or a sushi burrito. And during this past week, we came to the sudden realization that we had long been missing out on one other popular trend, a trend that many Linda Vistans consider a mainstay of their food repertoire. We now feel so un-cool because it has taken us this long to have our first Boba drink!
As we found out, Sharetea (located at 5265 Linda Vista Road—in the Ford Trolly Plaza, near the Napa intersection) is the place to go if you’re in the mood for the sweet, exotically refreshing cool drink known as Boba. For those readers still unfamiliar with Boba (sometimes referred to as bubble tea or pearl milk tea), the drink consists of tea mixed with milk poured over “pearls” (or boba balls or bubbles) made of tapioca starch that are flavored and colored in different ways. If you ask for fruity bubbles instead of the classic tapioca, you’ll get ones made from fruit juice or sugar. These “pearls” are what give the drink a very different chewy texture, compared to classic tea drinks. They sit at the bottom of the drink, and are accessed by a big straw that can be used to scoop them up.
Okinawa Pearl Milk Tea (note the pearls at bottom of container)
Upon entering Sharetea, which features a hip industrial style interior, we were overwhelmed with the number of choices on their menu, which included brewed teas, fruit teas, the boba milk teas, and even coffee drinks. I settled on the Okinawa Pearl Milk Tea (with brown sugar), while my wife ordered the Hokkaido Pearl Milk Tea (with caramel toffee). We both found the drinks as sweet and coolly refreshing as advertised—a good afternoon pick-me-up—and we both found ourselves commenting on the unusual texture of the boba balls.
Interior of Sharetea
Like many other things that taste so good, we did give some thought to the sugar and caloric content. However, we later learned that milk teas can be ordered with lactose free milk or other types of milk and also with reduced sugar. Boba pearls can have up to 10 or so calories each and if there are 50 in a glass you can see how it can add up.
Following up on our newfound interest with boba, we subsequently quizzed Linda Vista resident (and Taiwan native) Jessie C-F to learn more about the drink. She let us know that Boba originated in Taiwan in the late 1980’s. “It is much loved in Taiwan. The drink is most popular in the summer because of Taiwan’s sub-tropical weather.”
Some of the popular menu choices
We also checked in with our junior reporter Nicole P., who gave us some additional insight regarding the popular drink, commenting that she likes Sharetea drinks, “especially the way they have a variety of tea flavors, like fruit tea, milk tea, regular tea, etc. She reminded us that customers can choose the sweetness level of the drink, as well as ice preference. Nicole said “Every time I go to Sharetea I try new drinks, but my favorite right now is the Green Milk Tea with Boba. I like their drinks because they are not too caffeinated like Starbucks.”
Finally, Patrick O, a junior at USD, attempted to describe the drink by saying that “Boba is like a milkshake with slurpy orbs.”
We heartily recommend a trip to Sharetea if you want to cool off with a unique, tasty drink. Check out their menu here.
And now that we’ve encountered Boba, we soon hope to have a tasty run-in with both avocado toast and a sushi burrito.
ACTIVITIES AT THE LINDA VISTA RECREATION CENTER
There are two important activities going on this week at the Linda Vista Recreation Center. Please read below to get the details.
LAST CALL ON FOSTER KITTENS
Reminder: As mentioned in our previous post, these three foster kittens are scheduled to be available for adoption beginning the afternoon of October 29. If you are interested, just call the SD Humane Society and refer to their ID numbers. All three are exceptionally friendly, fun and playful.
Mark (ID #690444)
Mara (ID #690446)
Mitchell (ID #690442)
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Those are so cute kitty cats !!!