It’s hard to believe it’s been 20 years of Bubble Teas here at Stonehouse and it’s that time of year again when we offer Bubble Tea Happy Hour!
This is our 8th year of running our August Bubble Tea Happy Hour. After taking over Stonehouse Teas, I realized that our summer months were some of our slowest months of the year. This surprises a lot of people, but I knew that our regular customers are the local Campbell Riverites who all spend their hot summer days camping, fishing and enjoying our beautiful wild places, not hanging out downtown. At that time, we didn’t have a lot of visiting tourists in town either.
I also realized that a lot of people had never tried Bubble Tea, so I wanted to give them the chance to try it at half the cost.
History of Bubble Tea
Bubble Tea is a traditional Taiwanese drink that began in the early 1980’s. The traditional form includes milk, tea, sweetener and tapioca pearls (know as boba). Over the years though there has been many new variations that feature different teas, milks, sweeteners as well as offering drinks either blended or unblended.
Stonehouse Custom Bubble Teas
At Stonehouse we created a menu of blended Bubble Teas, which are more like a dairy free smoothie, which feature green tea, frozen fruit and fruit syrups. Our creamy drinks are more like a milkshake with milk or milk alternative, green tea, frozen fruit, sweetener and frappe powder to emulsify the milk and the tea. All of our Bubble Teas come with the traditional tapioca pearls or you can choose to swap them out for coconut jellies. We have 5 flavours of coconut jellies – mango, pineapple, strawberry, green apple and lychee.
With 11 fruit varieties, 16 creamy varieties and 8 different signature blends, the options are endless! You can mix and match fruits, substitute milks, and choose an assortment of pearls and jellies which makes our menu in the hundreds of drink options. Our staff always do there best to help you find a delicious flavour you will like.
New to Bubble Tea? Give These A Try!
For those of you who are interested in trying it for the first time, perhaps give Peach Sunrise or Hawaiian a try: they’re probably the most popular signature flavours. Mango and Strawberry are our most popular fruit flavours though, and Chai, Creamsicle and Vanilla Coconut wrap up our most popular creamy drinks.
We can make our Bubble Teas a variety of ways: gluten free, dairy free, blended, unblended and even some of them hot. The one thing we can’t do is sugar free-- unfortunately there is no such thing as a sugar free Bubble Tea (yet!).
Over the years, we really feel that we have created a wonderful following for our Bubble Tea. While in the early days of Stonehouse, we used to only cook enough tapioca for about 25 bubble teas a day, now we make enough for 100 daily! Bubble Tea Happy Hour has really become a Campbell River event. Every year, I have people stop me around town to ask: “When does Happy Hour start?” and “Are you still having Happy Hour?”
Be sure and join us in the whole month of August between 1:00 – 3:00 pm for a new Bubble Tea flavour everyday. You too can be part of the Stonehouse Bubble Tea Happy Hour crew!
Cheers,
Christine