PresoTea

This past march was sugar shack season here in Montreal and in honor of that Preso was selling a few different limited edition maple bubble teas. I got this one because I’m a complete sucker for cheese foam, and it was really good! I usually get my bubble tea half sweet when I have the option but, in this case, I went a quarter sweet because I felt like the potential for a maple bubble tea to be insanely sweet was really high! In all honestly, it actually could have been a little sweeter – the maple note was distinct but it didn’t feel like it matched the richness of the cheese foam. The oolong was super complimentary too – very roasty and woody, which just really suited the naturally a bit fruity amber maple. Really, really leaned into those sugar shack vibes in the BEST way!

Ordered this one a while back.

I admit that I was mostly just attracted to the stand out aesthetic of the drink, which is many thin layers of white vanilla cake cream sandwhiched between a darker orange red fruit filling, with a sort of smoothie like consistency. I was also curious what PresoTea’s “tropical” flavour would taste like though, since that’s pretty vague. Turns out it tastes like a combination of mango, papaya, and strawberry which is actually very good. Worked surprisingly well with the cake cream too.

I think PresoTea carries other better flavours, but I would maybe other this again!

Had this one on the weekend and while it was not my favourite bubble tea I’ve had recently (by quite a bit) it was definitely really interesting. I think it would be most accurate to describe it as the hybrid of a non-milk based bubble tea and a smoothie or slushy. It had a lot of dragonfruit blended up in it and while it wasn’t icy it was quite thick with a lot of frozen fruit. It also had a cheese cloud/snowcap cream topper, which ended up getting slightly blended into the rest and adding a creaminess and silkier texture. The flavour was just so light/mild though – I guess actual dragon fruit really isn’t the richest flavouring anyway but I expected it to be either sweeter or juicier or to have some sort of punch. This was just verrryyyy light and refreshing. Would be good on a hot summer day, but this was like ten at night, in an air conditioned condo…

So I actually ordered this like two weeks ago on my way from from the Tea Festival but, as some of you know, I do generally keep a stockpile of photos for instagram and when I don’t have time to do a Gongfu session during the day I usually just post something from my stockpile – and that was the case today w/ this milk/bubble tea. I wanted to wait to write the review until I’d posted about it on instagram, because it’s actually really fucking pretty.

Basically, this is one of the “featured” flavours at PresoTea right now (a bubble tea company in MTL’s Chinatown) and I was curious so I ordered it, with some added pearls because every bubble tea needs pearls. Here’s a picture:

https://www.instagram.com/p/B3rly5SgXYU/

At the bottom you can see the “sakura jelly” – which is basically a mildly sweet and slightly floral cherry jelly that feels kind of like the texture of rainbow jelly, but not really formed into rectangular blocks and just a bit less firm in general. It was really good, and a nice addition to the drink! Added a pop of something fruity, without making it an in your face punch of cherry. The rest of the drink was this sort of creamy, sweet milk that had a bit of a caramelized sugar and weak black tea taste – very good!

The whole thing worked well – it was sweet but not sugary, and I felt like I got a bit of all the different flavour elements I’d want from a bubble tea!