Heck, I haven’t had a bubble tea in five years.

Let’s start now.  

After one negative experience with the drink over five years ago and the recent opening of Boba Hut, I put my apparent dislike aside.

I mean good food is good food, right?

After walking in this quaint shop – in the Safeway shopping center next to campus – and asking the waitress/barista/cashier to surprise me, I was given a lychee tea with jelly.

Surprisingly, I tasted the happiness in the creamy, comforting and cold lychee tea on an even colder winter morning.

Suddenly my mouth was attacked by a barrage of jelly squares that were previously floating at the bottom of my cup.   

I understand that the tapioca pearls usually found in bubble tea can be swapped with jelly, but I can’t forgive a mouth full of tasteless, squishy caviar-like jelly messing up my lychee tea.

And then there was the coconut croissant with a hint of almond.

Compared to fantastic restaurants with homemade food in the area like Flora’s Hotdogs and Gyros, Chef Burger, The Spot Coffee Shop and even the DVC Bakery, the hut’s store-bought pastries might not cut it.

I returned later to try a regular bubble tea before I completely wrote off Boba Tea.

Lucky for me, the mango tea with tapioca bubbles was its saving grace and I finally understood boba.

I understood when I tasted the first shot of fake mango flavor mixed with the tapioca and vanilla rising from the pearls at the bottom.

And then I tried my first tapioca pearl in five years.

Was it gummy? Yes. Did it taste like traditional tapioca? Yes. Was it delicious? It was good enough.

And, after the jelly disgrace I’d tried earlier, I was content.

But still, I question what makes this shop different than Quickly, the resident bubble tea joint, or Mocha Boba, the previous bubble tea and crepe shop that was located in Boba Hut’s current residence.

I find myself with the age old dilemma of driving around with my friends searching for the closest “Golden Arches” and saying “Let’s not go to that McDonald’s. Let’s go to the good McDonald’s.”

Boba Hut houses a hodgepodge of odd decor and average food with at least one gem.

Besides a slight price decrease over its competitors, I’m not 100 percent sold on their drinks.

But I have found a new appreciation of bubble tea.

So I’ll head back over to order from the area’s newest bubble tea shop, but I’ll skip the pastries.