Happy Lemon Bubble Tea Catering

"ENJOY FRESHLY BREWED TEA & SHARE THE HAPPINESS!"

Happy Lemon is a worldwide bubble tea sensation, established in China in 2006, with 1500+ locations already, spanning China, Taiwan, South Korea, Vietname, Philippines, Japan, UAE, UK, Canada, and the US.

The menu is not nearly as extensive as many other shops, although when you visit a shop in person, there are plenty of customization: pick your drink base, your size, your sweetness, ice level, type of milk, and toppings.  They have a standard lineup of green or black tea bases for fruity or milk teas, smoothies, and a fairly small, but good, lineup of regular toppings (boba, pudding, aloe vera, lychee jelly, taro balls), and the slightly less standard Oreo mix-in, "puff cream" and very trendy cheese foam.  Notable, at least to me, is that there is no taro milk tea and no fresh taro chunks.

I did not visit a shop in person however, so my options were more limited, as we had them cater a private party.

Catering Setup.

For the catering setup, they brought only green tea, black tea, and milk tea (black) base, only boba for a mix in, and cheese foam for a topping.  There was no option to customize sweetness nor milk (green tea was unsweet, no milk, same with black, and the milk tea was non-dairy creamer and condensed milk, quite sweet, and used black tea).  These were made to order thought.

In addition, they brought a non-caffeinated option that came pre-packaged, Okinawa Milk tea, with either whole milk or soy milk, no mix-ins or toppings available, as they came sealed. 

I adore, adore, adore cheese topping on bubble tea (often known as "cheese foam", "creama", or "cheezo"), here called "salted cheese", so I was delighted that even with the limited options, we had that one.  For those unfamiliar, no, it is not like they dump cheddar cheese into your milk tea, rather, it is a fluffy topping, made from whipped cream and cream cheese (or, powders), and is usually salted, rather than sweet.  You may read all about it in many other forms that I've enjoyed: like Bubble Nini Tea in Sydney's Purple Rice Blended with Yogurt + Taro Pearls + Pink Salt Cheese Milk Foam, the Ube Marble creation from Boba Lab in Santa Monica with red bean, berry boba, lychee jelly, pudding, salted cheese foam, the simple version on my taro milk tea in Sydney at Chatime, the Royal Sesame Taro Milk + Red Rice with Cheese from the Original Royaltea also in Sydney and many, many more.

Extras!

After the serving time ended, they left all the extras (since we paid for them), so I got to try quite a few.

I was overall pleased, although there wasn't anything particularly extraordinary about their offerings.

Okinawa Fresh Milk (Soy).

The only decaf option they had was the Okinawa fresh milk, which is basically just sweet milk.  In the base of the cup was a sweet caramel like syrup, and other than that, it is just milk.  Instructions were to shake to mix it up.

Since these were pre-packaged offsite, they had no option to include boba or cheese foam.  They had both soy milk and whole milk options.  There were many of these left at the end, so I grabbed a few to stick in the fridge to try later - the Happy Lemon staff encouraged it, saying that since they didn't have boba, they'd keep fine.

I started with a soy version, as I do love soy milk.  I know I was told to shake it up, but I wanted to try it separate first.

The milk was ... uh, just milk.  It was not very soy prominent actually, less than a normal soy milk in my opinion.  As I love soy milk flavor, this was a bit of a letdown, as I wanted to taste more soy.  The syrup at the base was *extremely* sweet, and sorta reminded me of the syrup that boba comes in.  I did take a full sip of that, and wow, cloying, and not good.

Once I shook it up, the sweetness balanced out, but it was still very sweet, and the end result was basically just sweet milk, with no distinguishable soy flavor.  I was not particularly happy with this.

Okinawa Fresh Milk (Whole Milk).

Next up was the regular whole milk.  Again, syrup in the base, instructed to shake.  Here you can see the result of shaking, it looks like a black milk tea, due to all the syrup.

It tasted very similar to the soy, just more plain.  Again, very sweet, in a brown sugar sort of way.  I did like it, it was sweet and creamy, but more than a few sips quickly left me bored.  I wanted mix-ins, I wanted toppings.

I ended up using it with my morning cereal, which worked great - sweet cereal milk!

Jasmine Green Tea with Boba, Salted Cheese Foam, Matcha Powder.

For the drink that I ordered, I wanted to minimize caffeine, but didn't want just boring milk, so I went for the green tea option.  There was no milk option for this, but that was fine with me.  I added boba and cheese foam of course, and the server added matcha powder without asking.

The cheese foam, the part I was most exited for, was fine.  It wasn't as fluffy as other places, and wasn't as salty or, uh, cheesy and savory, but it also wasn't too rich, and the consistency was good.  It was good, but not extraordinary.

Green tea is something I rarely get, but I did like it - far more refreshing than I remembered, and it combined actually really nicely with the cheese foam.  It was not bitter at all.  I see why this is their most popular drink, it really does work.  You could use the straw to get a sip of just refreshing tea, or drink through the hole and get a bit of both.  I enjoyed it.

And finally, the boba.  The texture was decent, nicely chewy, although they were a bit hard, and were kinda clumped together.  Perhaps this is due to catering setup?  The boba was also extremely sweet, soak in sweet syrup, a lot of which was added with the boba.  Decent quality, a bit sweet, but worth getting if you want it.

So overall, a decent drink, and I was pretty happy with mine, and, to be honest, it was to get forced outside my standard order of taro milk.  This was my favorite of the drinks I tried.

Milk Tea (black) with Boba, Salted Cheese Foam, Matcha Powder.

When the event ended, we still had plenty pre-paid, so I tried another, this time, I went all in: the milk tea.  Made with black tea base, non-dairy creamer, and sweetened with condensed milk.  Again with the sweetened boba, and of course, cheese foam.  Basically, as decadent as you could get, and very different from the green tea.

It was very sweet.  It was very creamy.  It was ... liquid dessert.  Caffeinated liquid dessert!  Another style of drink I don't normally order, but it reminded me a lot of Thai iced tea that I used to get regularly, just with the fun additions of boba and foam.  Enjoyable for sure, although so very sweet, and it was another nice "forced" going outside my norm.  My second favorite drink.

Ice Cream Sundae with Boba & Cheese Foam!

A few hours later, after lunch, I had a bowl of ice cream.  Vanilla and chocolate.  I went to add some standard toppings, hot fudge, sprinkles, etc, etc, and realized ... the boba tea setup was still going strong.  While I didn't want another bubble tea ... I did want a bubble tea ice cream sundae!

I approached a bit sheepishly, and said something like "so, uh, I have this lovely bowl of ice cream ..." and the server was on to me in no time, "oooh, do you want boba on top?  And cheese foam?"  I was delighted that she didn't find me weird, and she told me that one of their locations is right next to a froyo shop, and people come in with froyo all the time and just order toppings for it.  Heh.

I loved my creation.  The boba, while too sweet for what I really wanted in my drinks, was perfect in all its syrup on top of my ice ream.  It added a sauce (the syrup) and a fun texture, all at once.  And the cheese foam?  Still not as lofty or thick as I wished it was, but it totally sealed the deal.  I added sprinkles too, I was so very proud of myself for this.  I loved it.

And no, I don't credit really for thinking of this ... I was drawing off my own experiences with boba sundaes, which I've had before at Devon Cafe in Sydney (both a taro soft serve version with coconut foam, boba, tapioca pudding, taro syrup, and more, and a salted caramel soft serve wit cheese foam and uh churro) and TP Tea in Tokyo (milk tea soft serve with boba).