OK, I don’t know why exactly, but I am addicted to bubble tea. You know, that iced tea drink with the chewy tapioca pearls at the bottom that you suck up with a big straw? LOVE it.

But the more I order it, the more something has been gnawing at me: I am getting SCREWED.

The place I most often partake, in the Castro, has everything as an additional price. If you order the Bubble Black Tea it is like $2.49, I think. If you want the larger size cup, add 50 cents. If you want tapioca pearls, another 50 cents. (This always annoys me, as the term Bubble in Bubble Black Tea would seem to indicate the tapioca was alread included. It is usually called bubble tea, but this is NOT the case with them).

Also, I get the most boring bubble tea there is, since I am watching my sugar intake and don’t do dairy. So, no milk teas, and none of the plethora os Asian flavor options, no lychee puddings, nothing. I get black tea, ice, tapioca, unsweetened. And it costs like $3.50ish.

For clarity, a gallon of unsweetened black tea at Trader Joes? $3.49. So, I am paying this for a cup of iced tea because it has tapioca pearls in it?!

NO MORE! I always assumed that the tapioca is a cheap-as-hell ingredient, and today, after buying a bubble tea, came home to investigate. Needless to say, the pearls sold for $7 for five pounds! Add another $2 for some fat straws, and the site says I should get about 100 12 oz servings. This means I am paying $16.42 (shipping added) for what would cost me more than $300 in the outside world! Phenomenal savings… unprecedented level of savings, actually.

So, the budget tightens yet again, as bubble tea becomes something I make at home instead of paying premium for anymore.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 29th, 2006 at 10:03 pm and is filed under diary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.