WOW Bubble Tea

Location:
4553 University Way NE (the Ave)
Seattle, WA 98105

Hours:
1PM-12AM Daily

Cost:
$3.01 for basic iced tea with tapioca (Like Pochi’s, they didn’t charge me for the penny)

First off, let me try and explain to you the concept of WOW. This is rather hard to explain, mind you, as numerous web searches turned up miniscule information. However, some of my devote Christian sources have explained to me that WOW stands for Wonder of Worship. Unfortunately, my sources both said they were unfamiliar with WOW and had only heard mention of it. All of my web searches returned information about music cds and concerts for WOW, but there was nothing about the organizations mission. So, until I find their mission statement, I am going to describe them as capitalistic Christians who want to take over the world with their music. So how, exactly, does bubble tea fit into this?

I’m not quite sure, other than a bubble tea café on the Ave attracts more attention than a new generic café that must compete with the plethora of much more established haunts like Solstice or Perkengrüven. Having a bigger consumer draw and less competition also means that one can install a massive collection of TVs stacked atop one another with brilliant decorative skill and play a constant barrage of Christian soft rock music videos at a noise level where the sound of shitty music isn�t grating, but can still brainwash customers.

But really, the overall ambience of WOW is nicer than most of the gritty restaurants on the Ave. The interior design consists of simple, stark modern lines without sacrificing comfort. Everything is white, clean, and uncluttered with fancy glass tables set between large over-stuffed booth-style chairs. With the whiteness and cleanliness of everything, I couldn’t help but think they were going for the standard “purity” motif, which I found to be unsettling. The TVs bothered me as they were the focal point of the café and incredibly hard to ignore. I also didn’t see the requisite board games anywhere, but they could have been hiding behind the TVs. The staff was friendly- as Christians should be- and the music was at a soft level that my Muzak trained ears could ignore.

As for the actual drink I ordered, they did offer my control flavor (lemon iced tea with a jasmine base). However, the jasmine base wasn’t really jasmine tea, but more a blend of jasmine and black tea. It wasn’t terrible, but it certainly wasn’t what I was expecting when I chose jasmine instead of green tea or black tea. The flavoring was rather strong, as well as the tea, so the overall drink had a funky taste since the tea and powder competed rather than complimented each other. WOW also cooked their tapioca balls almost too long so that they had a deteriorative squish and were almost too big to be sucked up the straw.

The Rating
Ambience: 8 out of 10 (the TVs and music were a little too much)
Tapioca Texture: 9 out of 10
Drink Quality: 8 out of 10
Recommendation: If Christians, capitalistic Christians or Christian soft-rock scare you, stay away.

This is an ongoing series of bubble tea reviews in Seattle. The control tea for each review is a basic lemon iced tea with a jasmine base (when available). Clearly, the ideas expressed here are my personal opinions and thus are not the end of your world should you disagree.