Baton Rouge tea aficionados now have another way to get their fix. Since opening a few months ago, the Baton Rouge branch of Kung Fu Tea has been serving up countless tapioca-themed beverages.
Reagan Boritzki, an English literature senior and barista at Kung Fu Tea, says that the atmosphere has been very welcoming, with a active staff and lots of friendly customers.
“We opened early December and ever since then we’ve just been slinging bubble teas,” Boritzki said. “We get a lot of nice people.”
The store, while probably best known for bubble tea, has a lot of options, although most of the drinks have a base of one or two types of tea. Some of their most popular drinks include Matcha Milk, Mango Slush and Oreo Milk Tea, though there’s a lot of mix and match options and topping choices.
“We sell coffee, like espresso drinks. We have a bunch of different kinds of tea, like fruit tea, milk tea, stuff like that,” Boritzki said.
Though the store has only opened a few months ago, it has gotten steady crowds and diverse customers. Boritzki says that people from out of the country seem to frequent the shop more.
“A good amount of people know about it, a lot of our customers are international people, which I think is really cool,” Boritzki said. “It’s nice to work in a place where you get to have a lot of diversity and international people that you get to interact with, and maybe they’re more familiar with bubble tea and the joys.”
Kung Fu Tea’s really benefited from the recent bubble tea craze, which Boritzki says has spread around Baton Rouge. The store is one of many recent pop-ups dedicated to providing people with the tapioca-themed tea they crave.
Boritzki said she thinks the bubble tea trend might’ve started on Instagram, with its pleasing aesthetics.
“I guess you go on Instagram, you see cute stuff, delicious stuff and you want to try it. Maybe bubble tea is one of those things, where it was some places in Taiwan or China, Japan. Maybe people saw it initially and thought, ‘Oh, that’s great and ever since then it’s become more of an international thing and people just really like it,” Boritzki said. “Or it’s probably just tapioca. People like tapioca.”
Either way, Kung Fu Tea seems to have made a good impression in Baton Rouge.
“It’s definitely the most family-oriented place I’ve worked and we have really good drinks,” Boritzki said. “It’s addicting, so watch out.”
