Kawaii Boba House Review

If there is one uniting fact I think all Southerners can agree on, it is this: IT’S STUPID HOT. For any of our friends who live in cooler climates, please believe me that this is not mere hyperbole. In AR at least, summer brings 100% humidity days over 100F and you’re liable to begin melting standing outside longer than a few minutes. Especially masked (which you officially should be!) it's fully the dog days of summer and nothing is better than stepping out of the heat into some cool AC with an excellent cold drink in hand. 

Which brings us to today’s review – the nerdiest new addition to Conway’s food scene Kawaii Boba House! Now, theirs is a story of unfortunate timing so far as they soft opened in late February only to be hit with all the chaos of COVID two weeks later and were forced to go to drive-thru, pickup, and Omni-delivery. For the anime fans, it’s got a cute Japanese manga café vibe and I’m looking forward to checking out their cosplay events and manga library when the lobby opens back up. Kawaii Boba House round 2 will happen one day!

We’re going to dive into some of the history and how to’s of Boba (or Bubble) tea for those who may have never had it around AR before – Boba veterans feel free to skip and scroll down to the pictures for the detailed Kawaii Boba House review. Climbing into our way-back machine, we begin the story with Taiwan’s tea industry, an import of early Chinese immigrants in the 17th century. Traditional Taiwanese tea houses were mostly marketed towards elderly folks as a social event, but eventually adapted elements of the English tea house with World War II British in the 1940’s bringing their milk tea recipe from India. Milk tea became sweeter and milder with sugar and honey instead of spice, and in 1949 a mixologist in an izakaya in Taiwan under Japanese occupation opened a tea shop selling shou yao (handshaken) tea made with cocktail shakers, yielding a fine foamed tea served cold. Boba (the black balls, also known as tapioca pearls) are the other half of this equation and are a starchy extract of the manioc/cassava plant which was introduced to Asia during the 19th century by Portuguese and Spanish explorers. The black tapioca pearls are the most common but depending on the ingredients, the color varies. The pearls themselves don’t really taste like much to start with but are boiled and steeped in sugary caramelized syrup for hours till they become springy.  These tapioca pearls were used commonly in popular Asian desserts like fen yuan (sweet tapioca pudding) and Baobing which is shaved ice, condensed sweet milk, tapioca, and fruit (Taiwanese shaved ice deserves its own post one day if I can ever find a place locally.) Here the history gets a little muddied, but a popular story is that in 1988 the Chun Shui Tang teahouse in Taichung, Taiwan was having a staff meeting where the product manager was snacking on some fen yuan, and for fun she dumped it into her iced tea and drank it. Magic was born. It blew up in popularity, variations including fruit flavorings, juices, and becoming iconic in the night markets and street corner stalls of Taiwan and became a global cafe sensation. The moniker “Boba” itself was inspired from a nickname for a famous 1980’s Hong Kong sex symbol Amy Yip – whose nickname, Boba, loosely translated means “champion of breasts”. There’s your fun surprise sexy fact of the day!

If you’re still with me through this beverage history lesson, thank you! My parents are both from Taiwan, shoutout to my mum who went to school in Taichung, and it makes me extraordinarily happy to get to share some of the special treats I got to grow up with you. It’s awesome seeing things that used to be considered ‘gross’ or ‘weird’ become accepted and popular as you get older, which includes Asian treats and nerdy hobbies. 

The most basic version of Boba tea consists of black tea, milk, ice, and tapioca pearls shaken together like a martini and served with a fat straw to accommodate the boba pearls. But there’s a huge amount of customization options at your fingertips which can be a lot at once. If you’re new to Boba, I can suggest starting like I did with just a black milk tea with classic pearls on ice, and then branch out to other fruit flavors to see what you like. Fruity milk teas remind me of milkshakes but less heavy.  Choking is something first-timers often worry about, but just drink it slowly and don’t try to keep a bunch of the pearls in your mouth at one time. The tapioca pearls can be a choking hazard to children under 4, so order their tea with no toppings to be safe. The signature of a good bubble tea place is the tapioca pearls texture – known as QQ, which is a cute word to describe the bouncy, chewy, toothy quality that’s sought after in things like mochi. Similar to the Italian al dente, Goldilocks QQ levels should be a couple bites worth of chewiness. If you’ve got to gnaw on it like gum it’s too hard, and if it breaks down immediately it’s likely been overcooked. 

As far as Kawaii Boba House goes, the exterior is entirely unassuming, and you could very easily miss that this is a café hidden behind Front St. The very end of Prince St. will lead you to this little corner lot with parking in the back. Ordering through the drive thru was easy and quick. The milk tea itself was delicious and perfect for a hot sweaty day. Cold and creamy without the heaviness of a shake, while not overpoweringly sweet. If you like English breakfast tea, this is up your alley. As far as authenticity goes, this had stronger flavors of cream and sugar than the ones I had when I visited Taiwan, but they have the base recipe down pat and it hit me immediately with nostalgia of sharing milk tea with my mom. You could happily chug it down if not for the tapioca pearls, which I think had great levels of QQ and force you to take it slower and enjoy the flavors and experience. 

The two bao (buns) I picked up were the Korean BBQ pork and custard buns. While I’m thrilled that you can just get these on the go, these did end up being a bit less exciting than the milk tea. The bbq pork bao is basically a steamed bread filled with sweet barbecue-flavored cha siu pork filling. The bread was fine, fresh, soft, and a little dense, but the cha siu pork flavor was pretty one note. Korean BBQ to me is irrevocably tied to grilled meat, and I was hoping to get a little of that smokiness and fat from the pork and more meat filling. The custard bun is not like a donut’s smooth custard filling, and has a thicker consistency with an almost nutty, eggy flavor. To their credit they were cheap, good, filling, and something you won’t find commonly on-the-go in AR. Next time I really want to try the strawberry jam Taiyaki, which is an ice cream sandwich in the shape of a fish!

COVID NOTE: It’s drive-thru/delivery only here for now, but the staff was masked and did a good job of a distanced food hand off. 

KETO NOTE: Unfortunately, this is a house of desserts and the sugar and carb content is going to generally be too high for me to consider any as keto options for now. Sorry keto friends! You’d have to real creative like a matcha green tea with no sugar, almond milk, and sadness.

     

GRADING

Vibe: 4/5* - this is solely based off pictures as the lobby is closed right now, but as a nerd I cannot help but give bonus points to a manga café with the boldness to open in Conway, AR of all places. Sorry these are the rules. 

Value: 4/5 – I think you’d pay similar at a Starbucks and get a thoroughly enjoyable and fun to eat Boba tea with some fun snacks out of the deal. 

Service: *5/5 – Granted it was just the drive-thru, but the service was great. She went over our order twice for accuracy, inserted the chip card into the payment machine and was 100% COVID safety compliant, and we were on our way with fresh bao in a jiffy. 

Comfort: -/5 – not applicable till round 2! It’s a small building though, and near the train tracks so it may not be the most comfortable place with a bunch of friends.

Food: 4/5 – while I was a little disappointed with the bao, I also have had a LOT of bao to compare to over the years so my standards are pretty high. The iconic milk tea though was delicious, and I want another one right now.

FINAL THOUGHTS: Kawaii Boba House is a pleasant surprise and I really hope they do well and can find a permanent footing here. While Conway has a great college population, I would have never guessed someone would have the audacity to open an anime café here and I’m thrilled that a place intersecting two of my favorite things is now open. I’m excited to get milk tea basically any day I want! Technically you can make it at home but having tried it before in my experience it’s 100% not worth it. Just go to Kawaii Boba House,  use the punch loyalty card = profit $$$. Hopefully when the COVID situation calms down a bit there will be some cosplay events and further advertising to build a loyal customer base, and they can continue developing their menu. If you’re looking for something fun to mix up the standard coffee cafe fare, never had Boba tea before, or just need something refreshing to cool off, I’d recommend Kawaii Boba House. I know I’ll be back!