Guilty Pleasures Upgraded at Shake&Tea, Dongdaqiao
Here at the Beijinger we're mad about milk tea, and even the flashy, fashionable cheese tea will never replace it in our hearts. After all, what's not to love about a big bottle of ice-cold, milky drink with sweet, soft boba lurking in its depths?
While we're talking guilty pleasures, we might as well fess up to our emotional dependence on cheesy toast, so accessible and convenient at the corner of Dongdaqiao subway station. Even if it looks a little unnatural, with that suspicious orange glaze over the cheap ordinary supermarket bread, scattered with a miserly topping of almond, it has plenty of flavor for just RMB 8.
So you can imagine our distress as we were languidly strolling out of Dongdaqiao subway station, and noticed out of the corner of our eyes that the cheesy toast stand was gone, replaced by something called Shake&Tea. "Nooooo!” we screamed silently, but then our fearless journalistic instincts kicked in, and we went over to investigate. And Shake&Tea turned out to be a milk tea shop, serving dirty milk tea, matcha tea with bubbles, and cheese fruit tea, just opposite our go-to milk tea shop Coco.
We tried their the signature “hand-fried brown sugar dirty tea” (RMB 22), which delivered on its promise: rich in dairy and tea flavors, balanced with sweet brown sugar, chewy, hand-made bubbles, and ice cubes. We tasted nary a drop of artificial sweetener in this drink.
The “rice juice cherry blossoms" (RMB 15) was pretty to look at, with cherry blossoms and jasmine flowers floating in the drink, and the juice was sweet with a subtle flavor of rice, reminding us of jiuniang (酒酿, sweet fermented rice). The cherry blossoms were preserved with salt, which brought a hint of salinity to the party. If we had to pick a fault in this summery drink, we would have added rice wine; the alcohol would really round it off and make it shine.
Shake&Tea doesn’t have a seating area - it's a counter near a bustling subway station - but the flavor of the teas and the affordable prices make up for it. And do you know what gets us even more excited? They still provide cheesy tea, and with each tea you buy, you will get a pastry for free – reason enough for us to grab these addictive drinks instead of a morning joe on the way to work.
Daily 9am-10pm. 20 Gognti Donglu, Near Exit A of Dongdaqiao Subway Station, Chaoyang District (135 2008 8568)
抖茶：朝阳区工体东路20号(东大桥地铁站A口)
These are only a small fraction of Beijing's many dining events happening this week. For more, click here.
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Email: tracywang@thebeijinger.com
Twitter: @flyingfigure
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Photos: Tracy Wang
