I've declared my love for R&B Tea enough times. On this blog and on my Instagram. Perhaps it was good karma then that won me 2 vouchers from Zaobao Lifestyle to try R&B's new drink: 老虎出巡 (roughly translated "the tiger goes on the prowl"). In English, it's name is more utilitarian and tells us immediately what this drink is: Brown Sugar Boba Milk with Cheese Brûlée. The voucher only allows me to collect the drinks at the Marina Bay Sands outlet, so a trip to MBS it was.
It's their classic Brown Sugar Boba Milk with a layer of cream cheese on top, sprinkled with some brown sugar and then torched to result in a thin hard layer of burnt sugar.
I love their classic Brown Sugar Boba Milk already, it is the most perfect drink that has ever existed to me. So I was expecting to love this. I was super excited to try this drink. But I'm gutted to say that I'm not a fan. I'm really not a fan.
The cheese layer made the milk super thick, it's almost like drinking cream. And you can bake cream, you can cook cream, but you don't drink cream. The flavour of the cheese was also very mild, to put it mildly. I'm not familiar with cheese teas like that. But the cream cheese didn't add much to the flavour profile either.
The brûlée makes this drink the aesthetic Instagram drink that it obviously wants to be. But the drink realistically can't be consumed without the brûlée layer shattering and getting lost in the milk-cream. The alternative is drinking mouthfuls of syrup. Well, yes, you occasionally get a tiny shard of brûlée in the cream, but the area to volume ratio of brûlée to cream means that what is supposed to make this drink special ends up being quite insignificant.
The things that were meant to set this drink apart from the original ended up being meh for me. I would rather stick to the original the next time I'm craving a sweet drink.
I also personally find the pearls at the MBS outlet slightlyyy undercooked and too chewy. It's not a big deal, but when you fell in love with R&B at their OG Toa Payoh outlet with perfectly cooked pearls, it's hard not to make comparisons. For that reason, I would not only stick with the original, but also stick with the original outlet.
Also, let's talk about the price
Let's talk about the price. Really. As much as I'm a fan of R&B, I'm not a fan of the pricing here at the MBS outlet. This drink is $5.80 (regular)/ $6.50 (large) at the MBS outlet. At other outlets, it's $4.80 (regular) only.
I don't really need to go into what that makes you feel does it. I guess you're paying for your drink coming out of gold taps at the MBS outlet.
Well, yes, okay, to be fair. If I was a business person, I would make exactly the same pricing decisions. It's hard not to. The MBS outlet attracts sooo many tourists. Significantly more than the other outlets which serve mainly locals. Tourists are undiscriminating about price. They don't have the time to do research. They see something that looks cool and trendy, they might just buy it on impulse. It's an easy extra bucks. And a few extra bucks per drinks translates to an increased 20% turnover in revenue just on this one drink.
It's also notable that this MBS outlet has their Chinese name "巡茶" as well, while the other outlets go simply by "R&B Tea". 巡茶 should be familiar with Chinese tourists, with over 100 outlets in China.
You know. That's fine. I'm fine with that. I love R&B tea. And F&B is tough in Singapore. Do what you have to do to survive. As long as my beloved Toa Payoh outlet remains the same. Do you.
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