Important Bits

• Presentation is spot on.
• Taste is more juice like instead of being tea forward
• bubble is solid and tasty
• A refreshing drink, but not quite bubble tea, more like bubble juice

Presentation

The packaging is quite reminiscent to what you would get out of a bubble tea shop. You get a plastic cup that is covered by a thin plastic film. The neat part is how they package the straw. The straw itself is attached to an indent in the cup and attached to the label that goes around the cup To get the straw out, you will need to get through the label film that’s attached to the cup itself.

Once you get the straw out, you use it like you would for a typical bubble tea drink. For those who have not had bubble tea before, you take the sharp end of the straw and poke it through the film. This way, you have a straw to use and unlike other temporary tops, it seals quite well.

One thing to take note of is the size of the drink. For $3.29, you get the amount of drink you would expect. At 12 Oz (355 ml), it’s smaller than the typical bubble tea that I’d get at a tea shop, but that’s ok since it is cheaper. Value wise, it is a bit pricey since for a bit more, you can get a bigger drink made fresh rather than have it prepackaged. That being said, if this is what you can get, it’s quite good. If you can catch it on a sale, then it’s a great value if you are craving a nice and refreshing drink.

Taste

The Drink

The Joyba Bubble Tea puts a fruit juice with lemonade first, tea second. What I mean by that is that you taste the strawberry lemonade the most with a hint of tea as a secondary note. Don’t get me wrong, it’s very good. Good enough that if it were the drink that were advertised, I’d know none the wiser.

The disappointment for me at least is when the tea part is involved. There is a lot going on in this drink. The tea portion gets lost in the overall flavor profile. You don’t get the depth of the green tea that one would expect, just notes of it. I hope in the future that we can get a bit more tea flavor into the mix.

The bubble

bubble is the cornerstone of the bubble tea. In this drink, you get the popping kind instead of the chewy kind. I’ll break it down into two different portions here: texture and taste.

The texture is spot on. I’ve had quite a few different popping bubbles, both in other packaged goods and from bubble teas shops. These are firm where they need to be and produce a satisfying pop when you do go to pop it. They do hold up quite well, but can be a bit more fragile than some of the other ones. I’d say it’s putting these right in the sweet spot for where I like it texture wise.

From a taste perspective. The contents of the bubble matches the taste profile in the tea, although a bit diluted. When you taste the bubble by itself, the juice is a bit muted, but still has flavor. When mixed with the overall drink, it gives you that very satisfying pop and mixes very well. You won’t miss the muted flavor.

My Final Thoughts

It is a delightful cup of tea that is both refreshing and fun at the same time. The packaging is reminiscent of actual bubble tea. Quantity wise, you do get a bit less than a typical bubble tea, but that’s expected since you are also paying less at the same time. I do miss the forward flavor of the green tea that I was expecting. Thinking of it of a juice drink with a hint of tea and a popping surprise, we have a winner there.