Colombo's been popping this year with bubble tea places. It seems to have become a fad now, and we've got our third bubble tea outlet — but we're not complaining! Mabroc over at the Liberty Plaza food court has some legit good bubble tea with pretty strong flavours, authentic tea in everything, and a dedicated bubbly menu.
Bubbles here there and everywhere
Okay, first things first. This place is super duper reasonably priced. It's a clear Rs 250 cheaper than bubble teas at Which Way West and Bubblelement. A regular cup here is 250 and a large is 280. Good deal? Hell yeah.
The Menu
There are six varieties of bubble tea here, ranging from classics, to shakes, fruit-teas, herbal ones, shaved ice (snow), and 'bubble cubs', a fun-coloured one with jelly, probably for kids but we ordered it anyway.
Of the classics, we tried their Hot Black Tea and Cold Milk Tea, and they're pretty solid. I'd never have thought that cold milk tea would taste this good. The Hot Black Tea was pure comfort food.
We tried the Blue Coral Bubble Tea as well, and it tasted like tutti-frutti bubblegum. This came with jelly instead of bubbles, and if I'm to compare it to something we're already familiar with it's a bit like the jello that comes with faludas.
The Bubble Fruiteas (We got Mango and Peach) were light, insanely refreshing, and 'cheery'. It comes with the 'pearls' instead of tapioca balls, so there's a super clash of flavours as they pop. To elaborate more, these are actual bubbles with fruity flavoured liquid inside.
While we loved everything we tried, we thought the Tiramisu was watered down and tasted quite close to a watery iced coffee.
If you're health conscious, Herbyz is definitely for you. It comes with like cinnamon and gotukola and stuff (if I recall correctly), and is a lot like drinking a blended health drink or paspanguwa. It had quite a medicinal taste and while it wasn't bad at all, we wouldn't recommend it unless you're on a health kick.
The shakes comes with milk and are quite creamy, whilst the snow is basically a crushed ice slushee. It's ultra cold but lacks in flavour when compared to the other options because it's mostly plain ice.
Point to note is that all of the drinks contains tea in them, even the Coral Bubble Tea. We were told that it has white tea, so that the colour wouldn't get too messed up.
The manager and staff are incredibly friendly and efficient — we went there on the opening day and a couple of days later, and despite having long queues and just having opened shop, they were running admirably smoothly. They also asked for feedback on how they could improve and what needs to be changed from all their customers on the first day.
In terms of space, Mabroc has a little cubicle like seating area in the foodcourt, which is pretty neat. There's a bubbly glass wall on one end, and the tables are glass-topped with pearly beads rolling around under it. The area would seat about 12 people I guess.
Mabroc looks pretty good. They're running well so far and we're excited at the new bubble tea kid on the block đ
