Image taken from mee-cha.com
A few weeks ago Mee-Cha advertised on their Facebook page that they wanted bloggers to write a review about their lovely bubble tea and frozen yogurt store. As I’m a huge fan of their bubble tea already I dropped them a message to ask if they wished for me to write a review and I think it’s pretty obvious what their answer was.
So I am here to tell you why you need to pop to Mee-Cha the next time you go to The Bullring!
I’ve briefly mentioned Mee-Cha in the past but I wanted to dedicate a whole post to them as quite frankly they deserve it.
A paradise for your taste buds in the heart of Bullring, Mee-Cha is an oasis for cool, refreshing drinks and delicious 100% fat-free frozen yoghurt’s, complete with a range of fruity toppings and yummy sauces. Create and tailor your very own mix of revitalising flavours and experience a great new concept of refreshments.
Think Refreshments… Think Mee-Cha…
Mee-Cha was started in 2011-2012 and their original name was actually Moo-Cha, which they changed after the start of this year. It is a bubble tea and frozen yogurt stall that is in The Bullring in Birmingham and it’s an amazing place to go if you want something different to drink whilst on the go or for a yummy frozen treat when its hot outiside. But what makes Mee-Cha different to any other food stall in The Bullring? Well, I’ll tell you!
Image taken from mee-cha.com
First let me tell you about Bubble Tea!
Bubble tea was first created in the 1980’s in Taiwan! But it is only recently that it has gone global and now can be found in pretty much every city! It has quite a few combinations of names around the world including pearl tea, boba tea, boba nai cha and zhen zhu nai cha! It’s becoming an extremely popular craze – so popular that in Germany even McDonalds sells bubble tea.
Mee-Cha’s fruity drinks are fat-free and completely refreshing, which means you are having a guilt-free treat! As well as that their tapioca pearls are freshly and constantly cooked throughout the day and have a chewy caramel texture and if you don’t believe me then you’ll see them boiling for yourself when you get there!
When I first tried bubble tea I was alarmed by the odd sensation I got whilst drinking it, due to what the squishy balls (tapioca pearls or popping bubbles) feel and taste like when they come up the straw in the drink. With tapioca pearls they’re squishy and taste like a coffee/chocolate flavour, whilst the popping bubbles can come in all sorts of flavours, usually fruity. My favourite are strawberry. When these enter your mouth they usually pop and when they burst they release the flavour that you chose.
As well as these, you can also get jellies which in my opinion aren’t to my liking but that’s sort of each to your own style opinion. I can’t really say much on these other than them not being like proper jelly at all but more of a solid version of jelly and very chewy. They aren’t to my liking, but they might be to you.
Bubble Tea is something everyone needs to try at least once and everyone I have introduced it to has loved it!
Image taken from mee-cha.com
At Mee-Cha you can get all sorts of flavours to create all sorts of yummy combinations, just take a look at the menu above.
When you arrive at the stall you will be asked 4 different things to complete you bubble tea order, which flavour you would like, which tea you would like, which style of drink you would like, and finally which toppings you would like. With bubble coffee however you would of course skip the part of the order where you would pick tea, but otherwise it’s pretty much the same procedure and it’s as easy as that!
I won’t lie, the process of ordering from Mee-Cha can be a little overwhelming, I mean look at that menu! My friends as well as my boyfriend still get a little flustered whenever I go there with them and I often take over the order for them so that they don’t get too worried that they order the wrong thing. However the staff as Mee-Cha are all really lovely and if you’re confused about what something is don’t feel too shy to ask, they won’t bite and will answer your question(s) no problem.
Image taken from mee-cha.com
Here are the four simple steps you’ll undergo to make your yummy drink!
Step One – Choose your flavour:
You can choose from 3 types of drink bubble tea, bubble coffee or bubble slush.
With bubble tea there are two styles of drink to choose from, milky or fruity and with them both you have 11 choices each! Although these are called bubble tea, you do get to choose if you have these with or without tea, but more on that in step two.
Bubble coffee gives you 11 choices of drink too and of course contains coffee, these are a great alternative to a Starbucks frappuccino!
Bubble slush also has 11 choices of flavour and don’t come with any toppings, although you can add them if you do so wish. These are great on hot days to cool you down, a great alternative to a Slush Puppy and probably better for you as well.
Step Two – Choose your tea:
With bubble tea you will be asked which tea you would like in your drink, green tea, black tea or no tea. I guess this all depends on your own tastes really! I like to mix it up depending on which drink I have. I often go for green tea with lighter coloured drinks and black tea with darker coloured drinks. I can’t say I have yet bought a drink from Mee-Cha and not had any tea in it! If you aren’t a fan of tea but would like it in your drink, let a member of staff know and they won’t put in too much for you and vice versa if you love tea and would like extra!
Step Three – Choose your style:
There are five styles to choose from, hot, warm, cold, with ice or even slush (costs 50p extra). When I’m cold in the winter months I often go for warm as it goes really nice with the milky bubble tea and bubble coffee. Cold is usually the best choice though and even slush when it’s boiling outside and you want a healthy alternative to a Slush Puppy.
Finally Step Four – Choose your toppings:
Image taken from mee-cha.com
You have four choices of toppings for your drink, tapioca pearls, popping bubbles, jellies or even red bean. I can’t say I have ever tried red bean in a bubble drink but I have in sweets from Yo Sushi and they aren’t my cup of tea! However tapioca pearls are really good in milky drinks, especially if they’re warm as they go super gooey and chewy, yum!
Image taken from mee-cha.com
Popping bubbles are always what I go for and you can get lychee, mango, strawberry (my favourite), passionfruit, cherry (another favourite), and yoghurt (another favourite).
Image taken from mee-cha.com
You can get jellies too which when they go up the straw taste of the flavour you pick but personally they aren’t for me, although I am inclined to try them out again soon. They have a sort of gooey sweetie like texture which kind of makes me cringe but otherwise they taste really nice. Don’t be put off by my fussiness! The flavours you can get for these are lychee, pineapple, mango, green apple (these are the ones I tried), strawberry, and aloe vera.
Then you pay for your drink, watch the process of it being made and then you can enjoy!
To give you an example of how the process or ordering works out I’m going to give you a couple of examples of some of my favourite drinks to order from the menu. I wish I had of had something like this, or someone who had ordered bubble tea before to guide me through the ordering process, as I was a bit anxious when I ordered my first drink. But as I said before the staff were lovely and helped me order a drink that is now down as one of my favourites!
Bubble tea option 1:
Milky green tea latte (matcha), with black tea, warm, and with yoghurt popping bubbles.
Bubble tea option 2:
Fruity green apple, with green tea, cold, and with strawberry or cherry popping bubbles.
Bubble coffee:
Coconut, cold, and with tapioca pearls.
Image taken from mee-cha.com
If however you aren’t in the mood for a bubble tea Mee-Cha also offers frozen yoghurt and let me tell you if I fancy a treat I opt for going there and I’ll tell you why!
When I first visited Mee-Cha back at the start of 2012 I bought one of their frozen yoghurt’s and it was amazing. For just under £3.00 I picked up the smallest tub of ice cream and got to have as many toppings on it as my greedy gut desired.
Unlike the process of bubble tea, ordering yourself a frozen yoghurt is pretty straight forward and only really requires 2 or 3 steps.
Step One – Which flavour?
You can choose between original and vanilla.
Step Two – Which size and do you want toppings?
You can choose mini, small, medium, large or even a fruit parfait. You also get the choice of whether or not you would like toppings. This only applies to mini, small, medium and large and costs an extra 80p on all of them apart from large, which costs a £1.00 extra.
Image taken from mee-cha.com
Step Three – Pick your toppings!
As you can see from the above image you have loads of choice and you know what? You can STILL have as many as you do so wish! I think that’s amazing to be honest considering most places will only let you have 3 and charge you for each additional topping.
Image taken from mee-cha.com
Like most places these days Mee-Cha offer a loyalty card and I of course have one… I’ve probably been through 5 of these already to be honest and I recommend them to everyone who visits Mee-Cha! After 10 stamps you will earn yourself a free bubble tea or a small frozen yoghurt, which is great of course. You of course earn a stamp every time you buy a drink or a frozen yoghurt. These are free to pick up and each one you use up you just start a fresh one.
Some other great things that Mee-Cha do (“Wait!” I hear you ask, “There’s more?”) is their promotions and discounts! They offer 10% to students with NUS cards as well as staff who work at The Bullring in Birmingham. Not bad eh?!
Image taken from mee-cha.com
At the moment they have an awesome deal on where you buy 1 get one half price from 22/09/14 – 25/09/14 and from 29/09/14 – 02/10/14!
Over the past 2 years Mee-Cha have grown into a successful little bubble tea stall and I really hope for the future that they open their own shop as I think that would be amazing!
Here are all the links you may wish to check out from Mee-Cha
So! Will you be going to pay them a visit next time you’re in The Bullring? I know I’ll be heading there at some point this week!
Make sure to let me know that you’ve been and if you go to the store with a recommendation from my blog, please make sure to mention it! The staff at Mee-Cha are such amazing people and work really hard to give their customers yummy drinks and yoghurt.
Until next time, take care all and I hope you all have a great week.
There Might Be Coffee 