Culis Market
#153 – 2745 Veterans
Memorial Parkway
Langford, BC

(250) 478-8831

I had my first taste of Bubble Tea ($3.75 plus tax) today courtesy of Culis Market. When stores, restaurants and cafes started carrying the Thai drink, I didn’t buy into it. When Chek 6 News did a segment years ago about the popularity of Bubble Tea, I wasn’t moved to tears.

No amount of prodding was going to cause me to cave in and fork over hard earned cash for the equivilant of a liquid Pokemon craze. But today, that all changed. Call it old age, call it peer pressure, call it the attractiveness of the woman behind the counter but I finally waved the white flag

“What flavour do you want?” she asked.

Oh this is good, I said to myself. There are multiple flavours. It was pleasing to see just how many there were. I scrolled through the list of pineapple, banana and honey dew to the more odd flavours of taro, red bean and mocha coffee. I chose Strawberry because it’s a solid choice. Good ol’ strawberry, it never let’s me down. I was offered the option of dairy but I declined. I wasn’t sure how this venture would turn out and I needed to soften the blow. I wanted to avoid any bad reactions afterwards. After all, I’m the definitive Brit and the idea of a bubble tea is utterly blasphemous.

She chose tapioca pearls for my concoction.

With one sip I expected to drop dead. Or at least spew strawberry flavoured ice water from out of my nostrils as my head spun around like a sprinkler.

My eyes lit up as I looked at my bubble tea chemist standing behind the counter. She stared back at me with anticipation.

“This is good”, I uttered in between big slurps.

It was ice cold and welcoming on a hot day. The strawberry flavouring was very powerful. When you use frozen strawberries, you need very little of the syrup. The result of a unbalanced bubble tea could be too sweet or not fruity enough.

Culis Market claims their tapioca pearls are made fresh daily and for today, I concur. Unfortunately I discovered too many consumed tapioca pearls tends to upset my stomach. Maybe I should have taken the advice of 54-40 and found myself an ocean pearl.