Y Not?: A “Y-Tree Milk Tea Hub” Review

                Watch out Happy Lemon and Serenitea, there’s a new tea hub in town.

                Well, there are a lot of new ones actually. Milk tea shops are sprouting everywhere, from the decent ones to the “homemade” ones. Some fast-food chains have even added milk tea to their beverages menu. Looks like this sweet, creamy drink is here to stay. Given that a lot of tea shops are already around these days (there are already at least four close to where I live), it’s a bit hard to appreciate one more than the other, and the challenge to come up with unique and interesting flavors is tough. This is why I was pretty excited about Y-Tree, a milk tea hub I just recently discovered at Greenfield District.

                Y-Tree is located at Mayflower Street, Greenfield District, Mandaluyong City. A lot of us are probably not very familiar with the address. It’s located somewhere behind the EDSA Central Mall near EDSA Shangri-la and the Shaw Boulevard MRT Station. The area is currently being renovated and branded to be one of the shopping and hang-out spots in the Metro so I can say the location of the establishment is very strategic.

                I’m not looking forward to the area being very busy though. One of the reasons why I enjoyed my stay at Y-Tree was that there were very few people around. The place was serene and relaxing, reinforced by the feel-good music, basically what you would want to go with you tea. The color scheme is cool to the eyes. I can imagine myself hanging-out there on lazy afternoons, enjoying my sweet milk tea, watching the people walk by and waiting for the sun to set. This would also be a nice place to stay with you laptop when you feel like working away from the office…just don’t be too loud making phone calls as it would destroy the mood. Well you get my point, two thumbs up for location!

                And now, the tea itself.  I asked for their bestseller and as usual, it’s the wintermelon variant – Y-Tree Milk Wintermelon Tea. I don’t know what it is about wintermelon but everyone seems to love it as a drink. Anyways, I had it and it tasted so good! At par with the more popular tea establishments we know. One of their Rock Salt and Cheese Variants, it was creamy but not too sweet so you can still taste the hint of tea on the drink. You can ask from 0 to 100% sugar concentration by the way to suit your taste. I asked the nice guy who was serving us what other flavors he would recommend for those who would try their drinks for the first time and these are what he gave me:

Y-Tree Milk Wintermelon Tea (the one we tried) Php 95.00

Hakka Milk Tea – Php 95.00

Honeydew Milk Tea with Mango and Pearl (now this is something new!)– Php 125.00

Caramel Milk Tea – Php 100.00

Passion  Fruit Yakult with Hantien Jelly – Php 100.00

Lychee Green Tea with Lychee Coco – Php 95.00

And oh, I saw in one of their posters that they have limited edition flavors. I don’t know how limited these are but I should definitely try them soon:

Mango Green Tea Special Cream

Chocolate / Strawberry Milk Tea

Peppermint Milk Tea

Chocolate Peppermint Milk Tea

            You can check out their Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/ytree.milkteahub.official . For deliveries you can call 2121212, or you can just say hello through 09162233218 or 654-4959.

For those who are wondering why the place is called Y-Tree, I took the liberty of asking one of the guys who were serving us (excellent customer service by the crew by the way), and he told me an interesting story. According to him, the owner was once strolling in the mall (or maybe somewhere else, he wasn’t sure about the mall) and he (I’m not sure if it was a guy but assuming it’s a guy) happened to pass by a shoe store, I don’t remember if it was Nike or Addidas.  He looked around and saw that one of the shoes had “Y3” on it. This is where he had a “eureka” moment and decided to name his tea shop “Y-Tree”, which also led to the tree-loving, eco-friendly themed shop he has now.

Talk about getting inspiration from the unlikeliest place. But hey, it worked so…Y not?