More and more foreign brands are opening in town, and from what I see they have successfully captured the hearts of Jakartans from the long long daily queue! I, myself haven't had the chance to try Tiger Sugar Indonesia (hopefully soon), but recently I was invited to the opening of Xing Fu Tang Indonesia in Lippo Mall Puri and I felt lucky that day because I didn't need to queue and they were very generous in providing us with their drinks, I managed to try most of them and I am going to review them in this blog post!
Xing Fu Tang is a relatively fresh brand, originated and established in Taiwan, in just a short span of existence, they have managed to open branches all over the world, including Jakarta now! I met the owner of the brand on the opening night but forgot to have any picture together, but he was nice, outgoing and friendly! Xing Fu Tang Lippo Mal Puri is located at the LG level of the mall, not too far from Momoiro!
As soon as I reached the store, I noticed one thing that captivated me instantly: THEY MAKE THEIR OWN BOBA, and I do appreciate that because then you'll have fresh bubbles, and if they know how to perfectly cook them they will turn out to be perfect texture wise! I heard people waited 2-3 hours just for the drinks so I did have quite an expectation towards this one!
The main reason why I love brown sugar drinks is probably because this kind of drink is not overly sweet, and here you can experience the overall making process from scratch and all live. The bubble's made from the mixture of prepped dry batter, brown sugar and water, molded and cut into small pieces (PS: their bubble is slightly smaller compared to the common bobas you find on the market right now), followed by the cooking process, chilling and further cooking process together with the brown sugar! After that they will start marking the glass with the brown sugar bubble, mix the milk and cream in, topped with brown sugar brulee (torched) and ready to serve! Check out this video to match the visual you had in mind.
milk + cream
topped with brown sugar, then torched brulee style!
They are very good with the balance of the drink BUT you have to stir everything properly so each ingredient blend well together (they have this 18 stirs rule FYI but a formality because they believe 18 is a lucky number), the overall taste doesn't feel overly milky and sweet, but a tad less creamy that I expected, the brown sugar's properly given and gotta give it to the bubble because the texture, moisture and firmness was just SPOT ON! I tried their Grass Jelly Brown Sugar Milk and apparently I like that better than the Brown Sugar Boba Milk, not sure why but I felt the balance was just better with this combo.
If you ask me whether it's worth the queue, well I don't queue for food (or drinks), I am the "okay next time" type and willing to wait for the moment to fade a bit then jump in, so three hours for a drink feels non-sense, but if you are willing to do so that's 100% your right LOL, and if you ask me to name my favorite, my number one is still R&B Tea in Singapore and Kokumi's different compared to the other ones.
