A M.
Yelp
I'm a fan of bubble/boba tea & thought I'd give this version a try on my way to the MAX. For those that don't know, Tiger Sugar is dark brown sugar in liquid form drizzled along the inside of your cup to give a "striped" effect - no actual tigers are in the beverages ;) The "base" Tiger Sugar drink is milk & dark brown sugar syrup with boba - you can add some different flavors to the milk like chocolate or matcha. They can be hot or iced.
When I entered, I was struck by the lack of indoor seating - so you can't sit and enjoy your drink. Most of the indoor space is devoid of any use or character - except the table with the stuffed tiger on it. Guess tigers get a place to sit in here but not people ;) There's no designated place to wait after you order - so that led to confusion from customers on who was in line to order & who was waiting. There is a robot reading off your order number when it is ready. I felt like for only having 4 orders ahead of me the line moved slowly - I think it was a 20 min wait... so if you need to catch a train/bus, plan accordingly.
There's no ingredients listed on any of the drinks or the website - like what is tiger cheese foam? Who knows! If there are ingredients listed, they're written in Chinese. There is a little bit of "Engrish" on the posters and the cups which I found just a tad funny - like "Be caution!" on the drink XD They did have a box up front showing they use Organic Valley milk or Lactaid milk in their beverages. There was a sign mentioning that they had soy milk too. You can customize, at least on some beverages, the sweetness but just 50% or 100%, not 0% or 25%.
I was told my drink, the Taro pudding one, couldn't have the sweetness adjusted because all the sweetness comes from the taro....except they forgot to mention that the boba that comes in the drink has the brown sugar in it. So the drink was sweeter than I would have liked it. I did like the pureed taro in the drink & whatever the foam was on top. If I tried them again, I would ask for the drink without boba to avoid the dark brown sugar that was in mine.
My partner said that his Signature #1 drink was just like really fancy sugar-milk and was missing the "tiger stripes" by the time I got home on the MAX - understandably the stripes don't survive a shaky MAX ride for 20 min, but the drinks do travel well as long as you keep them sealed.
They do have a lot of plastic waste there because their drink carriers are plastic bags, the straws, cups, and lids are all plastic.
So what do I think? Tiger Sugar is a gimmick - that you get neat "stripes" of sugar in some of the beverages as long as you drink it quickly after it's made, and it's about the price of a premium latte ($5-6 range). I do think they need to add indoor seating, a place to wait for your order, list their ingredients, and allow more drink customization options for the price point. Starbucks, as an example, has all those things at the same price point.
Would I be back? Meh, it wasn't special enough for me to justify the cost other than a one time purchase - in the end most of the beverages are indeed really expensive sugar-milk.