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You don't have to defriend me (No one yet does :P) if feel overwhelmed by my frequent posts of Coffee and Food. There is a solution for you to simply click the downward arrow on the upper right side of this post and select the "Hide Post". Walla... All similar posts from mE will not be popped out anymore. Bad joke sets aside.
Before diving into the topic "Half & Half Tea Express vs Zero Degrees" (Sound familiar? Hint: The upcoming epic DC comics movie's title you must already hear of. haha...), I would like to clarify that there is no plan for me to being either a professional blogger or market research consultant, rather than doing it for pure pleasure and testing my adequacy in business forecast.
This study all began from the moment I craved for a Boba Drink in a few days back. The first place in mind was, of course, the legendary "Half and Half" I didn't visit for months and months. Then, searching on the Yelp for their hours, a newbie (325 four-star rating reviews in 4 months, dawn good) just hit upon the same address. Immediately, I was like, "no way... 'Half and Half' was out-of-business?", but realized it's a mere new, fashioned store, 'Zero Degrees', opened literally by its sideline. So, here I am today to arbitrate whom the Ultimate Superhero is (Sorry, I mean the winner). Again, it's definitely not an easy task for me. I risked my life, to make purchases and chunked two cups of Boba drinks at once, to witness this epic battle (So stuffed that I don't think I gonna eat tomorrow).
And here're my critic.
Contenders (Both in small size, the same volume at under $4.50):
1. Half-and-Half Iced Milk Drink W Pudding Honey Boba
2. Zero Degrees Coffee Horchata W Boba (Costs $0.50 extra)
On the home court, the favorable 'Half and Half' always plays with very consistent quality products in regardless. The freshness of egg pudding, the sweetness of black sugar and the chewiness of bobas naturally came in flavor and texture; Two divided layers of ingredients topped with a padding layer of milk foam gave a glaring visual enjoyment. And the rest was a very typical, robotic SOP experience (Order, Move, Take your stuff when the number called and Get your butt out kinda of thing), nonetheless too excited to mention more.
Oppositely, the new hipster 'Zero Degrees' wrestled against with an exclusive menu (Trust me it is: Mangonada, Chamango, Strawberry Mojito and blah blah...), which totally attracted my eyeballs. Almost forgot to accent all their athletes were hiding at the locker room to prepare when I stepping into their store (What a unique merchandising tactic!). About a minute to two, their MVP finally came out to welcome mE. Since I am chasing coffee, so ordered their #1 (Also trying to dwell in everything else. haha...). When my erotic order was placing, the register smiled and greeted if my drink wanna serve in a glass bottle for $1.50 extra or regular plastic cup, then I politely replied to ask for examining the bottle. A plain vanilla milk bottle stuck with a brand logo was shown to me. Following then, you might already know my answer. At the time, inside my head, I told myself how about I trade-in all my beer and wine bottles to your store for less. But, have to admit that's a brilliant idea for steaming more revenues and brand stickiness. Getting back to my drink, before it served, another customer and I were electrifying waited for a whole 5 mins (I guess their secret weapons required that much lead time to load up). When my name finally called, I was so touched it was rightfully spelled on the cup (Finally, no 'H' in the middle but didn't score them more points). Talking about the product, their Coffee Horchata was 3/8 filled with particle-size ice cubes inside and leaned toward the bitter taste, and the boba wasn't as chewy as the former but fair enough. Besides that, from my observation, 8 out of 10 ordered there were teenagers, likely following the social media hype (Or BUZZZ, whatever you prefer that is being called) or anticipating their clean, trendy storefront design. In contrast, the former was mostly visited by OG like mE (haha...).
And so? you may ask.
If their final showdown is measured by ROIC (Return on Investment Capital), we've absolutely got a clear winner, and mE bet the One will stay for long. But I will leave to you to judge.
Hope you find this post amused. Peaxe out.
One other thing I noticed from this post is FB doesnt allow you to log into two different places with same address together (Maybe a good idea, Facebook?! I know it doesn't logically make any sense but like Life itself does).
*THIS IS A THROWBACK POST I'D IN MY FB ACCOUNT ON FEB 4, 2016.