Review: I-Mei Pearl Milk Tea Ice-Cream

pearl milk tea or bubble tea is one of my favourite drink. i always ordered the 'original', which is the milk tea with pearls. 

first heard about this ice cream from a taiwanese friend sometime back and woah~ finally found it in my local mart today. here's the packaging of the ice cream. it is the 'original' flavour, woohoo!

looks good right? like the real thing, even with pearl bits! as you can see, it is divided into a tea (beige portion) and a milk (white portion). embedded within the tea portion are irregular-shaped bits of 'pearl.

the tea and the milk parts should be eaten together to have a true taste of milk tea! the tea part seems to be made of oolong tea so it has a slightly bitter note while the milk part was very fragrant and creamy. i like the milk part and would totally buy if i-mei sells just a milk ice cream bar. the tea part was alright but when eaten together with the milk part, it tastes pretty similar to the commercial milk tea!

im one who likes to drink bubble tea because of the pearl. i like it when my pearl is chewy and with a slight fragrance. from previous experience, pearls that are kept too long in the milk tea will start to harden, so its amazing that the pearl in this ice cream was not hard at all! in fact it was soft and tend towards a jelly-consistency rather than a bouncy pearl. it still has some bounce and q-ness (as what is frequently used to describe pearls or tapioca balls). one plus point for this ice cream is that its not too sweet. even when i drink bubble tea, i will opt for lower sugar levels so this was just nice. an ice cream should be refreshing and not heavy.

rating: 7.5/10 - dont mind eating it again

The 11st Shopping Experience Thus Far

made my first order with 11st on 19 apr (sat). a total of 8 items that are available for worldwide shipping.

it is now 23 apr (wed) and the order status on 6 of the items is still stuck at 'paid'. a description of the status from 11st website is shown below.

the 'paid' status was there ever since i paid i.e. on 19 apr. bear in mind that since this is for international shipping, the 'completed (shipping)' shown above only equates to 'delivered to 11st logistic center'. 11st will then shipped out the entire package of 8 items to me. with the exception of 2 items, the other items seemed to have not been acknowledged by the seller.

i received an email from 11st informing that they have sent an email to the sellers 'pushing for quick delivery'. i guess this is their standard when an order hasnt been acknowledged for more than 3 days. this calmed me down a bit knowing that there is someone to rush the order for me instead of my having to draft a message to tell them to do it. since most of the sellers are presumed not to be well-acquainted with english, we might not be able to communicate well.

11st also mentioned about the option of cancelling the order if the seller takes too long. personally i dont like the idea of cancelling what ive already set on ordering. i usually spend quite some time weighing my options of the different items so having to cancel it annoys me. and then theres also the problem of where the refunds will go. will it be credited to my 11st account? which means its hard to withdraw and i will have to make another 11st purchase? or will they refund it back to my paypal which im not sure if they will refund the transaction fee too.

since this is my first experience with 11st, i just hope things speed up from here on and leaves me with a favorable impression.

11st Get K-beauty for Free!

11st was having a k-beauty contest/promotion and i managed to win a banilo co cc cream!

this was the parcel i received. i was surprised that a 30ml cc cream came in a large parcel.
turned out that besides the cc cream, there was also a pretty cosmetic pouch.
thank you 11st!

click here for k-beauty contest!

Korean Online Shopping Malls

no doubt, i love korean fashion. they have really unique yet asian-focused items which suit me. there's also a wide variety of items and the attractiveness of korean fashion can be partly attributable to the 'natural' feel their models pull off. with korean pop (kpop) being so popular and internationally recognised these days, it is hard not to get attracted to their style.

being one of the most wired country in the world, korea has many online shopping malls and domestic delivery is usually quick and comprehensive. you can deliver anything from food, snacks, groceries to fashion items all at a click of the mouse.

problem
despite the huge number of online shopping malls (blogshop equivalent), it is hard for people living outside of korea to purchase. here's some of the reasons why:
- some websites require verification of korean identity in order to register
- webmasters can't speak/communicate in english and website are in korean
- items for sale are usually made in small quantities, not enough for international demand
- selling to international customers require certain approval from authorities
- parcel forwarding service for korea products is rare

my experience
i have looked into many of the korean online shopping malls. there's so many beautiful items which i would love to have, but only a handful of such malls cater to the international community.

most of the malls require you to verify your korean identity which makes it impossible for non-koreans to register. although the main page of the mall is usually full of english links/words, but once you clicked in on the item, you will realised the details are all in korean. i have sufficient knowledge of korean to navigate through the website and to purchase, but as i have said earlier, most of these sites are not opened to international customers.

if you really really want to get the item, i supposed emailing the webmaster might work, provided they can speak decent english. the downside is that because they have no structured delivery system for such adhoc international orders, the delivery is usually expensive and payment mode might be limited (e.g. wire transfer which is extremely troublesome). additionally, you will miss out on any loyalty programme that website had to offer as compared to korean buyers.

i did bought a shoe directly from one of the korean sites before. i had to do wire transfer and the entire cost (including the shipping cost) was not worth it. i specifically told the webmaster to give me a brochure (which has my fave idol on it), he agreed, but ended up didn't packed it in the package.

this kind of situation frustrates me. that item looked really good, but yet i cant buy it. sad.

this prompted me to source for more effective way to get similar items... but i shall talk about it another day!

Hi

- am asian living in south-east asia
- 168cm, skinny and fair
- likes fashion but still learning
- loves online shopping

set up this blog to share my haul/experience using various online shopping sites!