First Sip: Black Scoop Cafe

Manila has turned into a milk tea crazy city. Most, if not all, milk tea stores in malls are packed with customers. Coco, Gong Cha, Dakasi, Serenitea, Happy Lemon, YiFang, ChaTime, Macao Imperial, Dakasi, you name it, each one has a strong following. But one brand that was quite off the radar is Black Scoop. 

Hello, Black Scoop Cafe.

Black Scoop opened its first store along the foodie strip Maginhawa last July. It didn't really make much buzz when it opened and I wouldn't have heard about this place if Let's Eat Pare's founder, M didn't mention it during an event we both attended. 

I was running a few errands last Friday and thanks to my lucky stars, one of my stops was right beside Black Scoop! And since the food gods were already making way for me to visit this new milk tea player, I opted to drop by before heading back to R's office. 

Unlike most milk tea shops, Black Scoop is more of a cafe as the place also offers savory dishes like pasta and rice meals. It is also spacious and could easily sit 30 persons or more. 

Since I didn't have time to try its dishes, I got two of its bestselling drinks instead--Imperial Fruit Tea (PHP110, medium | PHP120, large) and Okinawa Milk Tea (PHP90, medium | PHP100, large). 

The place only had a few customers when I dropped by around 12 noon so I got my drinks within 5 minutes. 

The Imperial Fruit Tea was refreshing! It had a nice passion fruit base flavor with notes of apple and orange. I also love that it has bits of real fruit which made me feel that I'm getting my money's worth. 

Okinawa Milk Tea was great too! The tea taste was very pronounced, something I like with milk tea. It comes with two types of pearls, tapioca and typical sago. It reminds me of Coco's Panda Milk Tea only not as sweet.

I was told that they are opening more branches soon with Banawe and Taft area as some definite locations. Hope they'll have a few more closer to home. 

Black Scoop is located at 101 Maginhawa Street, Teachers Village, Quezon City.