NO. 70

ROYAL NO.9 MILK TEA


BY MIKE OF STUDIO MIMU

“In high school, the local ‘bubble tea’ shop was where you would meet up to gossip before/after watching a fight between some boys over a girl at the local oval. Back then I preferred the blended ice with jelly, but I later discovered the ecstacy of milk tea once I was old enough to head into the city on my own.

I quickly became obsessed with boba. Not to the point where I would constantly repost memes from Subtle Asian Traits, but enough to overlook the shame surrounding the ‘stereotypes’ of being Asian and genuinely liking boba. My foray into the world of sugary, milk tea and chewy tapioca pearls could very well be a seeding script for an A24 coming of age movie centered around the suburban Asian Australian experience. It’d probably be called ‘Happy Cup’ or ‘Lucky Cup’, as a nod to the first wave of milk tea shops to hit Western shores back in the 90s.

Anyway, The Alley LuJiaXiang do some of the best milk tea I’ve ever had. The wait is longer than most places, but it’s worth it for the handcrafted pearls. It’s also very hard to argue quality when their logo is a deer.”


ADDRESS
The Alley LuJiaoXiang
Shop 3/410-420 Sussex St, Sydney NSW 2000