Just hanging out and becoming quite a regular at Paneras. And to think, I don't really prefer their food! I oftentimes get dinner somewhere else and then head out here for the wireless. So I've tried a bunch of their stuff just to make myself "legit." Right now I'm sipping on an Iced Chai Tea Latte, which has brewed black tea with honey, vanilla, cardimom, cinnamon, ginger, and milk, over ice. I don't even know what cardimom is. It actually tastes like what Juicy Fruit gum juice would taste like. I order it because it most closely represents my all time favorite drink, Bubble Tea (or Pearl Ice Tea). It's basically tea, milk, and tapioca pearls all sipped through an oversized straw. This ICTL is missing the pearls (and has a touch too much ginger, and maybe cardimom if I knew what that was).
This reminds me of a story... Bubble Tea is VERY Asian, so Asian that the good stuff is only available in California or college campuses with good science programs. The chewy tapioca pearls are my absolute favorite, but if you take a survey it's almost always split along ethnic lines... Asian = love it, non-Asian = hate it. So one day at work, I run into future-scrubman Eric, and he's sipping on an oversized straw and chewing on tapioca pearls. Eric isn't exactly the first person who pops in your mind when you think "Asian" so I was throughly shocked on many levels:
1. I didn't know Cincinnati had a place that sold Bubble Tea! Where did he get it?
2. Why the heck is Eric drinking it?
I pointed to what he was drinking and said "what the?" He said, "Oh, it's bubble tea..." I was like yes, I know what it is... why are YOU drinking it and where did you get it? Apparently there was a British tea place that opened that had it. Too bad it closed down after a few months.
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4 comments:
Earl Grey Milk Tea with Pearls
eric's pretty trendy and cool, i'm not surprised he was drinking bubble tea. chewing tea though sounds odd to me though....
i liked panera's pizzas but at $9 a pop that was too expensive for lunch.
Cardamom is my absolute favorite spice. It's a warm spice and, in my opinion, goes with nearly everything.
I think Panera's food is only marginal,too. Very disappointing as they have so much potential and just don't make it.
Bubble tea is VERY trendy. It's shooting up "everywhere" in the past 2 years. I've only had it once, and at the hippie market. I think I picked the wrong flavor for me (they had 3 flavor options - and were out of my top 2). But the tapioca pearls are fabulous (what's not to love about tapioca pearls?!??). Is it a food? Is it a drink? It's a drink you can chew!
(oh yea. Cardamom can have some offnotes if used too high. Many things do, of course, but cardamom has a pretty low threshold, like nutmeg. I typically use it at half the usage rate as cinnamon, and in some applications that's pushing it. Some of the traits I notice when it is too high are weird almost mentholy medicinal - bandaid like - notes)
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