NosThes

A few weeks ago I went out for bubble tea after work with a coworker – I had already finished up my advents for the day, and it was surprisingly quite nice out. We’re pretty locked down here in Montreal right now (no eating at restaurants or going to people’s houses – among other restrictions) so we had to order our bubble tea and then enjoy it over a walk…

This was nice – I was just craving something rich and chocolate-y after a day of more spiced advent selections, and it was very satisfying. It tastes, basically, like a chocolate milk but with this really roasty oolong undertone/edge to it. NosThes also has these amazing “mini boba” that are like a quarter of the size of regular boba/tapioca so that’s what I got with it.

It was very fun, and a nice break up from advent teas.

Got this last weekend when I went to NosThes for bubble tea with some friends; the same friends I always go out with for bubble tea! I decided to order something that I normally wouldn’t go for, and this is what I settled on.

I liked it a lot more than I expected to! You could very easily tell that it was made with fresh lemons and ginger – and a lot of ginger. Like, my first sip had me wanting to cough (but I stifled it, because Covid-19) because that ginger was INTENSE and pretty spicy/hot. However, it was also just so refreshing – like a lemonade crossed with a ginger beer and malty, floral tasting black tea. There were little bits of lemon pulp and ginger strands throughout too, which was a nice touch.

I’m glad I went outside of my comfort zone, but it was a surprising hit! Also way more refreshing feeling that something milk based would have been – it was so hot out that I definitely didn’t want to drink anything heavy feeling.

The other flavour that I ordered in…

This is my coworker Helen’s favourite flavoured carried by Nos Thes which is what made me want to order it. It’s a milk based bubble tea, and I also added the tiny boba as well as mung bean paste to my order; for the full Green Bean/Mung Bean experience!

I was kind of surprised how much I enjoyed this one – I found it very rich and creamy, and in a way that extended past the general creaminess of the the milk tea base. The main flavour that I remember getting was just this very lovely sweet nuttiness. It’s hard to explain exactly what it tasted like because it felt very new to me in terms of flavour – I liked it a lot though and I would 100% order this again. Maybe without the added mung bean though? It tasted good, but I didn’t like the thick pasty texture I got in slurps with a lot of it.

To be honest I was worried because I don’t enjoyed Red Bean beverages very much, even though it’s a popular flavour, but this was much nicer to my palate!

Uber Eats has been adding dozens of new restaurants over the last few weeks, which makes a lot of sense because right now the only source of income for restaurants is take out and delivery…

Well, one of the new ones that they added recently was Nos Thes – a bubble tea shop (though they serve food too) that I went to earlier in the year with a coworker. I really liked it, and it’s been bugging me that I can’t just casually go out for bubble tea right now so I ordered two bubble teas to drink over the course of the weekend. This was last weekend, I think? Maybe the one before? I’ve been sitting on these tasting notes for a while, anyway…

I wanted to get flavours that were new to me (because I always like trying new things) and I also wanted to do one with milk and one without because I thought that was a lot of milk to be drinking otherwise. This was the one without; and I did add some of the super cute tiny boba that they carry to it as well because (to me at least) a bubble tea doesn’t feel like a bubble tea without boba.

To be totally honest, I didn’t enjoy this one. I thought that both the grapefruit and the oolong were both good quality – the former having a tangy pink grapefruit quality while still having that pithy bitter undertone and the latter being really deep and mineral/roasted tasting. They just did not worth TOGETHER. A greener oolong honestly would have been so much of a stronger choice because the florals would have been muuuuccchhh more complimentary. This was just jarring…

Still finished it though; can’t let a bubble tea go wasted like that.

This was my second order from Nos Thes – and by far my favourite of the two flavours that I picked up! Like the Honey Osmanthus, I ordered this half sweet and with the mini tapioca and it was honestly just perfect that way. The hazelnut was sweet, creamy, and nutty which is just the perfect trifecta. I’ve realized recently how much I really like hazelnut as a flavour on its own – I mean, it’s solid with chocolate too but I think when you just have creamy and rich hazelnut it’s even better!

Honestly not much to say for this one – the flavour was absolutely nailed, I could still taste the black tea, and it was delicious!

I went out for bubble tea with a coworker/friend last Friday after work – she picked the location, and she happened to choose a bubble tea place here in MTL that I’ve actually not been to yet so I decided to treat myself and order two flavours of milk tea in order to get a proper sense of the location…

This was the slightly more traditional flavour option that I went with – I don’t know why, but I thought this was an oolong tea!? It was nestled in the menu alongside a bunch of other milk teas with oolong in the drink name so I guess I’d just assumed? I suppose it very well could have been – but it did taste more like the black tea base that was used in the other drink I ordered rather than any sort of oolong based milk tea I’ve experienced.

Aside from that I didn’t love this flavour option – osmanthus is a tricky flavour for me, personally, to pick up on and I wasn’t getting anything from this aside from a sweet honey, creamy milk, and the aforementioned black base. So it did taste alright, but I felt like it didn’t fully deliver on what I’d expected.

Maybe worth note that I ordered both bubble teas half sweet, and I also added in the cute “mini tapioca” that the location offered – which were basically regular tapioca but at a third of the size. I liked the experience/texture of the mini tapioca a lot more than expected – I didn’t wind up with the situation where you just have a million tapioca left over in the cup after finishing the bubble tea and they were the perfect amount of squishy/chewable. That was definitely one of the more unexpected highlights from the location!

Sipdown

Goodbye to one of the oldest teas in my cupboard. This is much better as a smoothie or a latte so today is a bit of a disappointing send off. Having the last teaspoon plain and though it is nutty and warm, it is lacking the sweet creaminess of the vanilla. Still, with so much tea incoming, I figured it was time to say goodbye.

I have owned this tea for a long time…as in 3 years or so. It is actually the first tea I had as a bubble tea/bubble tea latte and I loved it. When I moved back to Toronto, my roommate and I actually split what we had of this so for the longest time it was just hiding in an unmarked plastic bag shoved in the darkest corner of my stash…until today when I was trying to think of what would go well with peanut butter and vanilla pudding and I remembered this tea. Turns out it was a great call because this tasted like a milkshake dessert. Creamy but with a nutty/baked goods flavor. And, the frozen fruit really took a backseat to the tea and other components in the smoothie which is actually quite unusual. All in all, I was pretty happy with it and this tea is still delightful.