First Sip: Tiger Sugar

Tiger Sugar definitely tested how we Filipinos love milk tea. With hundreds braving the unforgiving Manila heat for hours just to get hold of this popular drink, Tiger Sugar became trending and talked about for months! I also tried to line up one time but gave up after 2 minutes when I overheard someone say "Hmm, okay lang. Not worth it." while holding a cup of Tiger Sugar. I told myself that I'll just try it when the craze for it die down. Months passed and the hype for it is still alive! I guess waiting for 30 minutes won't be that bad so I finally gave in. 

Hello, Tiger Sugar.

Tiger Sugar quickly expanded to four branches in under 6 months and I'm so glad that the locations it chose are all near the places I frequent. 

I decided to swing by its Trinoma branch after hearing that the line there is a lot more manageable than its BGC store. Just thinking that I'll queue up inside an air conditioned mall makes it so much better already.

I quickly spotted Tiger Sugar at Trinoma's food court and sprinted towards it. I was so happy that there were only about 4 customers ahead of me. Or so I thought. 

Turns out Tiger Sugar has two queues, one in front of the store and one by the pillars fronting the food court. They did this to avoid blocking other food court concessionaires store front. I find that very considerate but it would have been nicer too if they have signs to help customers as it's so easy for others to cut in line if the staff managing the queue doesn't pay much attention. 

It took about 20 minutes for me to get to the front of the store and I had to wait for about 10 minutes for my drink. It's not so bad except I started to smell like Pepper Lunch (or was it Sizzling Pepper Steak?).

I ordered two of Tiger Sugar's bestsellers, Brown Sugar Boba Milk with Cream Mousse (PHP120) and Brown Sugar Boba + Pearl with Cream Mousse (PHP120). I requested for pearls (PHP20) for my boba milk drink and failed to realize that it already comes with tapioca. I wish the staff reminded me that boba milk means with tapioca. No wonder that drink was 1/3 tapioca. 

I was ready to be mind blown and say it was worth the wait. But it didn't bring joy to my taste buds and sing hallelujah.

Though these drinks were sweeter than the closest counterpart Xing Fu Tang, I still found it too light in the taste department.

The tapioca used had this delightful chewy texture but this isn't something I couldn't get elsewhere. The milk and cream mousse used were good but nothing that would make me wow. 

The two drinks tasted very similar, but boba milk had a more pronounced flavor of brown sugar. 

I guess I prefer milk tea over brown sugar milk. Maybe I'll try its Brown Sugar Black Tea with Boba next time. 

Tiger Sugar is located at 2nd Floor, Food Court, Trinoma Mall, North Avenue, EDSA, Quezon City.