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22 Brown Sugar Pearl Milk Drinks, Ranked From Worst To Best

We taste 22 bubble tea brands offering this caramelly drink — which one is #1?

22 Brown Sugar Pearl Milk Drinks, Ranked From Worst To Best

Never mind the fact that Mount Alvernia Hospital recently published a cautionary article about the harmful sugar content in various types of bubble teas on their website. And that the most sinful one is Brown Sugar Milk Tea with pearls — which according to its infographic which compared the sugar and calorie content of various bubble teas — contained a whopping 18.5 teaspoons of sugar per cup. Singaporeans’ insatiable appetite for brown sugar pearl milk seem unabated, judging from the number of shops that offer the drink and the crowds that throng them.

Bubble tea has seen some ups and downs in Singapore. The takeaway bubble tea shop first appeared circa 2001 and then, pardon the pun, the bubble burst a few years later when there was a surplus of chain stores, mom-and-pops ones, even hawker stalls. But now, the trend is back with a vengeance, the latest craze centred around brown sugar pearl milk. The beverage — a blend of fresh milk, brown sugar syrup and pearls — was created in Taiwan, the birth place of bubble tea, where customers queue for up to a crazy three hours just to buy brown sugar milk from Taiwanese bubble tea chain Tiger Sugar. The brand launched its first outlet in Singapore at Capitol Piazza in 2018 to much fanfare and hour-long queues, and now boasts five other outlets. Shortly after, other bubble tea specialists such as The Alley and Xin Fu Tang have since set up shop in Singapore too. And suddenly, we see brown sugar pearl milk everywhere, even at older stores like Each a Cup.

What’s its appeal? As it’s made from purely fresh milk with rich brown sugar boiled to a caramelised finish and no tea, this drink doesn’t contain any caffeine. It’s also very pretty — the brown sugar syrup trickles in to form trippy patterns in the milk. Drinking it is also a fun experience: some brands like Tiger Sugar recommend that you shake the drink precisely 15 times to blend its ingredients before sipping it, while others like Chinese bubble tea chain MuYoo encourages you to taste their warm pearls and cold milk individually to experience the contrast in flavours before mixing it all up. Brown sugar milk is also creamier and packs a higher sugar content than the average bubble tea, ’cos the brands offering the drink do not allow you to customise a lower sugar level, unlike your usual bubble tea order.

Considering that the Ministry of Health is considering a total ban or taxation on high-sugar drinks (Singapore has the highest prevalence of diabetes among developed nations), we wonder if the bubble tea craze here may eventually see a clamp down. But if you're planning to sparingly drink only one cup of brown sugar pearl milk in the interest of health, we've made the choice easier. We tasted 22 brands from all over Singapore that offer the beverage — and ranked them from meh to yum so you can make that one cup count.

Without further ado, here are the results, ranked from our least fave to favourite (scroll to the bottom for #1).

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