04 October 2011

KOI

Even before Gong Cha, there was KOI at Iluma. It is yet another bubble tea franchise hailing from Taiwan and it is interesting how the word KOI turned anti-clockwise is 豆 in Chinese, which means bean, which likely refers to their famous coffee beans.

Anyway, the queue at the Iluma outlet is always very long and I never got the chance to try out its drinks. There is also an Ang Mo Kio central outlet but that too was full of people when I was there some time back.

Finally today, by chance I saw an outlet near the Bishan bus interchange and managed to buy the Koi Cafe drink for a trial. This was my 4th or 5th coffee of the year but sadly, I have to say I wasn't thrilled by the taste at 50% sugar content. I also wanted a plum black tea but was told that the typhoon in Taiwan affected the shipment of plums here, so I was left disappointed.

However, two things are for sure. The large cup from KOI is slightly bigger than that of Gong Cha and it is definitely much more pricey too.