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2009-10-29
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Some people call it the driving force to progress, while some considers it the part where you get distracted by the presence of it and loses focus. Rivalries can be on both sides of the coin. You deliver the goodies, you get your share of your customers, you don't, blame it all you want, you ain't getting any attention, or for that matter, sympathy either. The Taiwanese beverage joints have turned CWB into another Mongkok. In one cross-section there are four beverages stores, the most recent one
I ordered up one 奶蓋紅茶 with less sugar. This 'milk cap' is according to them, a "trade secret" I have no intention to find out its content, but it's something that I'd like to try to recreate at home. It has a consistency of Mexican crema mixed with a little bit of double cream (unwhipped), and lose the tang -- the thickness of the cream layer hence floats on top of the chilled and shaken black tea and ice cubes in the middle.
Maybe it's the opening jitters, or maybe they're just nervous to have a line building up early evening. The staffs are not standing around idling or texting SMS. They are really keeping themselves occupied prepping, shaking and so on. My order arrived chilled and freshly made, with thin steaks of cream worming downwards into the glittering brownness of the black tea. As you observe closer, you can see the uniform creaminess leaching into the tea, floating about until the creaminess dilutes the tea into a milky concoction, bit by bit, until at the end the entire beverage becomes cloudy and then milky at the end. Suggested procedure of consumption of this drink please see HERE. The cream layer is thick, with a slightly salty taste to it. The plain tea (at the beginning, no cream dissolved in it yet) is sweet and slightly toasty, but not to the same extend similar to the Oolong's toastiness. When you mix the two together, the cream mellowed out the colour as well as the taste of the entire beverage.
The beverage list is pretty much the same across the board, and so is the narrow waiting space on the street. Really, it doesn't matter where you stand there will always be someone waiting WITH you, squeezing alongside the curb anticipating their numbers to be called, in time people inevitably form a line without themselves knowing -- something HK-ers do at best even when we're not consciously doing so. It's just as amazing to see staff from other joints coming by the drink at Gong Cha. Maybe they're testing out their fellow rival, maybe they're just there for the fun of it. Gong Cha's beverage selections are not limited to fruity green tea, it offers a certain selection that's unique on its own. Case in point, it has the milk cap, and it's by far the best among other similar products (including lookalikes)
Looks like Gong Cha is here to stay, it can be good news for fans for these teas, maybe not so good for its rivals?!
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