For a long time, bubble tea has been a combination of tea and a load of sugar.
Well, Richmond’s newest bubble tea spot is looking to push a healthier version of bubble tea.
Pika Herb & Tea Co. recently opened at 8580 Alexandra Road, and we went in anonymously to see what that actually means.
The unit faces out to Garden City rather than inward to the plaza parking lot, next door to a ginseng trading store.
We first spotted this unit back in October, when signage went up for a place called Pika Tea with a lightning-tailed logo that looked an awful lot like a Pikachu.
It soft opened in late July, quietly, with a Pikachu balloon tied up out front.
Pika Herb is run by a husband and wife, Henry and Nee.
The idea came out of a family health scare and the sad reality of getting older, they told us, and still wanting bubble tea without all the unhealthy bits to it.
Their solution: combining traditional herbal tea with fruit notes.
If you grew up in a Chinese household, the menu will read as familiar.
These are the herbal teas someone in your family made when you were run down, rebuilt as a counter drink.
The drinks are created by what they are supposed to do for you, digestion, beauty, focus, hair growth.
We ordered the one they recommended the most, the Ginseng Essence, and augmented it by adding Golden Aura Dew (mango) to it.
This drink is meant to help with digestion.
There’s no doubt that it does not drink like a regular bubble tea.
It’s closer to the herbal soups your mom or grandma fed you when you were under the weather, with a slight fruit note on top.
The ginseng wasn’t as stringent as we expected and did lean towards being rather refreshing instead.
So the bottom line: you’ll have to look elsewhere if you’re searching for the usual sugary and syrupy bubble teas.
The shop calls its own space a modern industrial tea lab, which is not far off.
Inside is sleek and dark, and then there are Pikachu toys sitting on the shelves and along the counter.
So we asked the obvious question.
The owner told us pika is not a reference to Pikachu at all. It is the pika, the small rodent that actually exists.
Pikachu just happens to be a top favourite character in the family.
Pika Herb now joins other recently opened Richmond food spots like POCO RIT, Baskin Robbins Lansdowne Centre, and Oakberry.
For more new and upcoming food spots in Metro Vancouver, take a peek at our tracker here, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.
Address: 8580 Alexandra Road, Unit 1125, Richmond BC