Steep Creamery & Tea

I was pretty excited when Steep first opened several years ago, in my neighborhood.  First, as an ice cream lover, I was obviously going to pay attention to a creamery, but Steep not only has ice cream, but rolled ice cream.  Oh, and bubble tea!  Two fabulous trends, both of which Steep Creamery & Tea specializes in. 

The bubble tea lineup has no surprises, but a decent variety of options, average mix-ins, etc.  Same with the rolled ice cream.

Steep's menu has changed some over the years, and they now offer regular ice cream pints in addition to the rolled ice cream, but these come in Asian flavors like White Rabbit, Yakult, black sesame, even durian & cream!  

I haven't visited in person, so sadly couldn't get a rolled ice cream, but I had some co-workers bring me back a drink when they took a little field trip one day.  Sadly, I wasn't a fan.  I'd love to return, post-pandemic, for ice cream ...

Taro Smoothie, 0% Sweet, with red bean, agar boba, lychee jelly. $5.50 + $1.50.

I had read that Steep makes the taro drinks with real taro.  That was a big appeal to me.  I wanted real taro paste, real chunks of taro.  I got it 0% sweet, wanting to taste that amazing taro flavor.

But, those comments seem, well, entirely untrue these days, just by visual inspection, if nothing else.  My drink was a brilliant color of purple, which just doesn't happen with real taro.   There were also no bits of taro found.

The taro flavor was strong.  I did like that.  But ... it was very, very, very sweet.  I requested 0% sweetness, but if they use a taro  powder, which they likely did, it was a sweetened one, and this was an incredibly sweet drink, which was not what I was aiming for at all.

Sigh.  

Now, I know that reviewers were actually grumpy about the fact that they used real taro, and the drinks weren't as sweet and taro flavored as people who are accustomed to taro powder are used to, but I was pretty disappointed that Steep seems to have given in to the powder style.

The drink was well blended, a nice texture for a smoothie.  One point for that.

**.

Mix-ins: Red bean / agar boba / lychee jellies.

The mix-ins were all fairly average, they didn't seem house made, and there was nothing remarkable about any of them.

Standard red beans, not too mushy.  Not much to say there.  I do like the red bean and taro flavor combinations, so I was glad I added them.

Standard lychee jelly, very sweet, and sweeter than what I wanted.  I added them intentionally as I had specified 0% sweetness in the drink, and I wanted the jellies for a little bit of sweetness, but given how sweet the base was (grrr), these served to make everything too sweet.

The agar boba were the weakest mix-in, a bit too chewy.

Overall, the mix-ins let me down, mostly because I was expecting higher quality, and, well, a non-sweet base drink.