Pürcha, a new premium bubble tea store with freshly brewed tea, opens its doors in Charing Cross.

Bubble tea Taiwanese drink has taken London by storm in recent years with many brands settling all around. The concept is fairly easy, it’s tea – black, green or fruit tea, fruit juices or milk and the boba, tapioca or fruit pearls hence the name.

Brands make bubble tea in many flavours, sizes and sweetness levels. The idea is quite similar amongst most brands or so I thought.

I go to Pürcha at Charing Cross to find out. The Charing Cross branch is its third store along with Holborn and Croydon.  

First impressions are the store is rather spacious with tall clear cylinders along the wall filled with loose tea. That’s their first selling point.

The bubble tea is made from freshly brewed tea of your choice in front of you using hot colorful water steamers along the counter to help in the brewing process.

Pürcha offers a choice of “set menu” bubble teas, which can be customised or amended. Or “build your own”, starting from choosing your tea base, flavours such as fruit or milks plus toppings the classic boba, fruit pearls, mini mochi, lychee and coconut jelly.

With all the drink flavours customers can choose sugar levels from 0 to 100 and ice. Pürcha is also the only bubble tea brand to use purified mineral water in its process, which I think definitely influences the final tea taste.

Another selling point of Pürcha is it also offers Taiwanese Fried Chicken, which can be seasoned to personal liking with seasonings such as salt & pepper, garlic, plum or wasabi.

My personal favourites were plum and garlic. Wasabi was extra fiery so watch out if you go for that one. While plum was umami flavour, reminded me of umeboshi (Japanese sour plum) a little.

To my surprise fried chicken and bubble tea make an excellent combo.

I’m not a novice to bubble tea and I’ve tried a fair share over the years and I’ve always preferred milk based teas with tapioca pearls.

Never fruit ones but occasionally I go a vegetable version – ube sweet potato bubble tea to be exact.

It’s that strikingly purple drink you might have seen someone passing by somewhere in London. Until recently I only trusted one bubble tea brand with making ube drink for me.

Now Pürcha is also on my list for sweet potato bubble tea. It goes by the name of Sweet Potato Swirl on their set menu and it’s made with ube extract and tofu pudding, which gives it a little saltiness.

I already mentioned that I don’t normally go for fruit bubble teas. The reason being is most are very synthetic tasting packed with pre made syrups.

However, after positive impression of Pürcha’s milk teas I decided to also try the fruit version. I went for Jasmin green with mango blend and coconut jelly and I have to say I actually liked it.

I don’t know if it’s the freshly brewed tea, more natural ingredients or both but it was a great drink. Despite the quality ingredients their pricing is rather competitive though, starting from as little as £3.20.

Whether you are a novice or not to bubble tea, Pürcha is a good brand to start with or save to your phone for next time you fancy a quality bubble tea.

Pürcha, 82 Charing Cross Rd, London WC2H 0BA

Find their app in an app store Pürcha.