HEYTEA Sago

HEYTEA Sago is $0.98 as a topping and adds 90 calories. Freshly cooked for 30 minutes daily, and the smallest and softest of the chewy toppings on the menu.

Sago and tapioca get confused constantly. Traditional sago comes from the pith of the sago palm and tapioca comes from cassava root, and most of what is sold as sago pearls today is actually made from tapioca starch shaped into tiny beads. What separates the two on a drinks menu is size rather than source. Sago pearls are 2 to 3mm across where bobo is closer to 8mm.

Size changes everything about how it drinks. Bobo has to be chewed and it comes up the straw one pearl at a time. Sago comes up in a small crowd, gives almost no resistance, and disappears without interrupting the drink. People who dislike bubble tea texture usually get on with sago.

Thirty minutes of cooking is roughly what the small pearls need to go clear all the way through. An undercooked sago pearl has a white dot in the centre and tastes of raw starch, and the fix is time rather than temperature.

At 90 calories and 22g of carbohydrate it is not a light topping despite the size, and the pearls carry only 5g of sugar because they are steeped in water rather than in syrup. That is a genuinely different profile from Brown Sugar Bobo, which is sweetened as part of the cooking.

The lack of sweetness is the argument for it. Sago in a fruit tea adds body without adding flavour, so the fruit stays exactly as it was. Bobo in the same drink brings brown sugar and changes it.

At $0.98 it is the cheapest topping on the board alongside matcha jelly, which makes it the low risk way to find out if you want texture in your drink at all.

It suits mango particularly well, which is not a coincidence. Mango sago is a dessert across Hong Kong and Southeast Asia, and this is the same combination in a cup.

For a mango drink to put it in, Cloud Mango is $9.99. For a chewier topping, Brown Sugar Bobo is $1.68.