Botanical Lab

If you’re a bubble tea addict, you might well recognise West End’s newest flower-covered cafe. Botanical Lab moved to its new home on Melbourne Street from a hole-in-the-wall spot in Fortitude Valley’s Bakery Lane, bringing it’s dreamy soft serve, sweet bubble teas and adorable interiors with it. 

Now in a much more visible corner location (where Baskin Robbins used to be, if you need a hint), the re-located cafe’s gorgeous interiors can be seen from far and wide, enticing you in through the wide front windows with their pastel pink colour scheme and dreamy dried flower arrangements.  The menu is still focused around just a few sweet treats, along with a lengthy list of especially loose leaf teas and sips (because there is more than just Earl Grey tea out there people). The milk and fruit teas are definitely the star of the show here though, with flavours ranging from chai, matcha and Earl Grey milk teas to lychee, pineapple and passionfruit fruit tea, which you can then customize with jelly, pearls, milo and soft serve, should you wish. 

If you follow Botanical Lab on Instagram, you’ll know that their ombre drinks and parfaits are the most eye-catching items on the menu. The ombre drinks are just what they sound like—one or several tea flavours are layered over ice, creating a colourful ombre effect with or without pearls. For anyone after a sweet treat though, the parfaits are where it’s at. Milk tea or matcha soft serve is layered with jelly, sponge cake, boba pearls, crumbled cookies, syrups and fruit in a glass beaker to create a dessert that’s as easy on the eyes as it is on the tastebuds. You can build your own or choose from the milk tea, match or strawberry flavours, it’s up to you. 

Image credit: Ranyhyn Laine