I have been dying to write about this since hearing the news that the Tokyo Ghoul pop up cafe stand that was at Anime Expo this year, would be making an appearance at Rose City Comic Con. I planned out my whole con around this cafe, I wanted to try pretty much every single drink on the menu. It’s also always super cool when something like this shows up at a convention or does a pop up event.
Of course my first mission once getting to the convention center was biding my time till the exhibitor hall opened up for the day before tracking down where the cafe was. I am so happy to weave my way through the crowds and find the giant Tokyo Ghoul artwork that made up a wall of the cafe. Jumping straight into ordering (I was so lucky there wasn’t a line yet), I chose to order Rize (named after one of the key characters in Tokyo Ghoul). Her drink is a strawberry dream with ube cold foam, not normally a fan of ube but loving how the drink looked… I couldn’t help myself and obviously added boba to the order. I think it took me about five minutes to drink it down (after shaking it well, as one is meant to), and I really did try to savor it. It was just too good! It was also very sweet, which again is not normally something I enjoy. This turned out very well balanced and gave me a kick to start off my convention wonderings.
It was also about 30-40 minutes before I was back at the cafe stand again to grab another drink with friends. Yes, the cafe staff pointed this out and laughed because I told them it was a very good drink and I wanted more. This time I picked out Kaneki (the main character of the series), his drink is a strawberry brown sugar boba milk. Absolutely loved it! I honestly wish I had another one while I was at con, and right now, because I can feel my mouth watering just thinking about it. This poor drink barely lasted me taking a few steps away from the stand.
Another fun aspect of this pop up was the cafe workers, there were four of them dressed in the same uniforms worn in the anime. There were screens playing moments from the anime, and big cutouts of the characters that worked at the cafe as well. Lots of opportunities for taking photos with these cutouts and with the artwork on the sides of the cafe, the line did end up going along one of the sides (but it’s a fast line). By the end of the weekend I had ended up trying five of the drinks, Rize and Kaneki that I talked about before. The rest were Touka, triple berry lemonade, very sweet and paired well with boba jellies. Tsukiyama (also one of my favorite characters from the anime), berry blossom oolong, it was good but slightly bitter with the oolong (and paired with the jellies as well). Lastly, I had the Hideyoshi, mango jasmine tea, though this was unfortunately not to my taste. I love mango but it was too overpowered by the jasmine tea, at least to me (trust me I was saddened by this too).
I am pretty sad I didn’t get to try the rest of the flavors, I only had three left to get (I should have just got them and put them in the fridge to have later). There was Yoshimura, Vietnamese coffee, I’m not a coffee drinker but I wanted to try this as well. The other two I missed out on were Hinami, house boba milk tea (a classic), and Uta, chocolate oreo milk with cold foam (this looks delicious). I hope I may be able to try these last three from this pop up cafe again this year (or next), and I will be keeping my eyes out to see if it will be at any other upcoming conventions. I would be willing to break my “only one more convention this year” rule for this cafe alone. I can’t stand leaving things unfinished, especially boba.
The idea for the 10 year anniversary of Tokyo Ghoul, was a really good one and I hope we will be seeing it and others like it happen more often at conventions and just random locations (I mean there was also a revolving sushi One Piece pop up as well…). Though, another pop up themed boba tea cafe may just do me in. I have never had so many boba’s in a three day span in my life. A total of six caffeine and sugar filled boba teas, crazy for me as well (the sixth one I grabbed at another boba shop to help me make it through my three hour drive home).