Taiwanese tea and Pan-Asian treats
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519 6th Ave S International District
206 / 447-8098
4508 University Way University District
website
Interview with owner, I-miun Liu
I-miun Liu is the owner of Oasis Tea Zone:
“My family’s always been in small business, and in restaurant-type of business, and so we wanted to do something a little bit different, something a little bit more geared towards the community that’s not just a sit-down restaurant. People can hang out; it’s a destination spot for this area.”
“So that’s why we created a larger space. A lot of bubble tea places traditionally are very small, they just serve drinks and what-not. But we opened it up, and it’s a larger space, so it’s more seating. We have a lot of games here, there’s wifi, we have TVs that play our sports, people with laptops playing games together, birthday parties and what-not. Sometimes people just chill and relax, and studying. So that’s how this space was created, was for that. ”
I-miun has watched bubble tea scene evolve over the years since Oasis opened.
“You know, it’s changed quite a bit over the years. When we first started 11 years ago, the main ones were Ambrosia and Gossip. So we were the third one in here. And lot of restaurants hadn’t had it yet. It was still kind of a new thing in the Northwest although it kind of was already taking off in California and other parts of the country it was kind of new to Seattle still.”
“So that’s when we started. It was kind of just very basic, simple: just bubble tea. But it’s changed quite a bit since then. It’s not just strictly just the one flavor tea with some milk. There’s a lot of different types of toppings, different types of drinks. We’re really into the realm of smoothies and juices now so it’s kind of taken on a life of its own. It’s kind of beyond just the milk teas now, or the shaken teas now, that traditionally has been the bubble tea. Which it fine; keeps it interesting, I guess.”
Even while expanding its offerings, Oasis continues to take a slow approach.
“It’s a lot more labor intensive than I think people think it is to make a bubble tea. First thing we’ve got to start up is the tapioca. It takes over an hour for us to prepare a batch of tapioca, so that’s kind of the hardest part of this is maintaining the levels of tapioca and keeping it fresh. And so we start that off in the day, and then we prep the teas; we brew large amounts of black tea, green tea, and all the types of tea we’re going to use to make the drinks.”
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| avocado snow |
Do they ever run out of tapioca?
“Oh yeah, all the time. Like I said, it takes about over an hour to prepare one batch, and I don’t think I’ve ever counted how many drinks a batch really makes, but it takes a little over an hour. And so you never know; you don’t want to overcook a bunch because it doesn’t last too long so you always want to keep it fresh. So you want to kind of gauge it when you want to make more, you want to predict the business. So sometimes we mispredict. Sometimes there’s a concert that goes off that we forgot: a swarm of people come in, within thirty minutes all our tapioca’s gone. And it takes an hour to make some more. It’s unfortunate, but we try to accommodate as much as possible.”
Luckily, there’s plenty else to keep customers busy while they wait for tapioca. There are the games, the Taiwanese pop, and, oh yeah, the desserts...
“We have a fried banana split; it’s deep-fried bananas, with what you might find might find in a traditional banana split but the bananas are deep-fried, which has been really popular.
“Nutella wontons; it’s deep fried wontons with Nutella toppings, so that’s been, for people who have a sweet tooth, that’s been a big draw for them. You know: warm, it’s melting, it’s good. A lot of people really enjoy that.
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| dessert waffle |
These desserts reflect Oasis Tea Zone’s broad outlook.
“I would say in the beginning, when we first started, it was very Taiwan-oriented--that’s where bubble tea kind of originated. But I would say now, eleven years laters, I would say it is very pan-Asian. It’s kind of opened the door. We serve a variety of types of drinks; some of the drinks, even though it may have an Asian flair to it, you could say Americans drink similar types of drinks. We’ve kind of of opened the doors to things that all cultures might recognize.”
“We’ve had visitors from all over the world. Some people are visiting Seattle, not in particular to come here; they visit Seattle for various reasons, tourism, traveling and whatnot, and they stop by here and they really enjoy an atmosphere that’s catered to all cultures, and it’s really open-minded.”
