Nestled into an unassuming little strip mall in Garden Grove lies Mio Tea House, a pretty nice place with a decent array of appetizers and boba and non-boba beverages. But Mio is not the innocuous local joint it pretends to be, oh no – it holds a deep dark secret, buried not underneath its floorboards or locked in its closet but scrawled in bone-white chalk across the top of its menu.
Unashamed, cruelly proud, Mio Tea House is the progenitor of the latest local culinary monstrosity – the gallon milk tea challenge.
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Four Journalists, One Cup: We Try to Drink a Gallon of Milk Tea Each in 10 Minutes from Voice Media Group on Vimeo.
We met outside the teahouse on a sunny afternoon, four journalists, one cup, not truly prepared for what lay in wait. Charles Lam, our fearless leader, boldly proclaimed to have researched our task for a full five hours. Taylor Hamby, our cocky champion, believed she could take the tea to challenge. Ryan Cady realized, upon the steps of that caffeinated Golgotha, that he did not, in fact, enjoy Milk Tea. And Nate Jackson? Why, he was just there to watch…but in the end, even he was not spared.
Bear witness, dear friends, and recall the words of Joseph Conrad, author of Heart of Darkness – “The horror, the horror.”
To ditch the Lovecraft schtick, watch the four of us literally drink ourselves sick on Vietnamese Milk Tea one at a time, and know that we did this willingly. We did it for the people.
Short statements from the participants:
“”A news team that barfs together, bonds together!” — Nate Jackson
“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kw2R6LikY08” — Taylor Hamby
“I'd rather eat another 50 McNuggets.” — Ryan Cady
“No comment :(” — Charles Lam
