Stereoplasm: Snacks - Bubble Teas and Crispy Treats Review

This was the last collection that the lovely Kacy curated as Stereoplasm's Creative Director. As someone who also has East Asian cultural heritage, milk tea is absolutely something that I grew up with (I remember the first time my friends introduced Happy Lemon to me, and their smaller tapioca pearls - I absolutely loved it). Personally, my favorite is milk tea with grass jelly - it's really got a lovely flavor and it's a bit easier for digestion and chewing compared to tapioca and it's a bit lighter too! I also really love a yogurt purple rice and a fruit tea with coconut jelly and aloe, it's truly delicious. Also a slightly unrelated cultural note but having grown up in Asia and Australia, I've never really heard it referred to as 'boba' outside of North America. In Chinese, we call it 'pearls', so I tend to either use bubble, pearl or tapioca (Japan likes to use tapioca.) 

For this collection, this is definitely one of the concepts I was really in love with - it's something that speaks to me and my gourmand loving heart, and I've long been yearning for some more East Asian inspired gourmand scents because they're very distinct and special. So to both Kacy and Meaghan - thank you for creating such a wonderful collection! Even if this hadn't been sent to me, I absolutely would have taken the chance to buy them because they're just so unique! I've seen quite a few people asking for milk tea scents, and it's great because now I can just point them towards this collection. As always - thank you to Meaghan for sending me this collection to review - and I was so surprised when I opened up my package to find a 7.5mL rollerball of these! This is one of those scents I'm absolutely just going to bathe in, so I was so excited. A few friends of mine have also been so excited about these and wanted to try them out (which hasn't happened because of lockdown), but I am not the only one who was curious for this collection. The little illustrations, as always, are by me! 

If you're interested, I can now point you towards where to get them! You can find the scents here, with a 1.8mL sample for $8 CAD, 4.5mL for $16.50CAD, and a 7.5mL for $26.50CAD. 

Taro Milk Tea - Loose black tea leaves steeped in lightly sweetened milk and blended with sweet, creamy taro root.

Sometimes, whenever people write reviews of scents, or you're reading a review of a scent, it can occasionally be obscured by really pointlessly flowery words - especially when it comes to mainstream and niche scents that say things like 'caramel' and 'cotton candy', but smell nothing like it. It's why I'm here for indies - they really capture the actual scent experience of things. This whole spiel is basically a long winded way to say, yeah this really smells like taro milk tea - and not like, an 'artistic interpretation of taro milk tea', no like, I bought myself a taro milk tea with taro bubbles and had this on my hand to compare. And it's fantastic. Spot on, duplicate scent of taro milk tea. I don't know what more I can say about this. (If you don't know what taro milk tea smells like, I would probably describe it as a sort of, ube, sweet potato, starchy scent, and this has a good amount of the sweet milkiness to balance it out.) My only complaint is I wish this was stronger because it's got slightly lower throw and projection! 

I remember seeing Kacy on the Stereoplasm IG account make herself a mug of taro milk tea and sniffing some prototypes and picking out which one she liked best - it was really cool to see that behind the scenes! I think she definitely picked well. 

Jasmine Milk Tea - Loose green tea leaves and jasmine flowers steeped in lightly sweetened milk and whisked with a teaspoon of finely ground matcha.

This was one of the scents that Kacy didn't get to choose for the collection - she actually made a little note that this has an almost fizzy opening that reminded her of ramune, and not much of a jasmine note. When I tried this, I definitely got a similar experience - there's a sweet and light fizzy opening with a punch of bergamot and lemon. After dry down, I get a touch of creaminess - which is a similar shared note across Taro Milk Tea and Bouncy Boba. It's not quite as distinct as a 'milk tea' note for me, it's more just an indistinct light, fizzy and creamy sweetness. No jasmine for me either.  

Bouncy Boba - A delightfully chewy boba–made from tapioca flour mixed with sugar and rolled into bite-sized balls. They're carefully boiled for 35 minutes and sprinkled with the tiniest splash of milk to create the most tantalizing add-on to any tea! 

This is lovely! Although it's just described as a pure 'tapioca' scent this actually smells more like brown sugar milk tea to me. Much like Taro Milk Tea, this is a spot on replicate of brown sugar milk tea - paired with this gorgeous rich brown sugar note (although it leans a little like a rich caramel with nutmeg and cinnamon), a dash of milk with the starchiness of the tapioca bubbles. I really love this one too - it's a fun scent. 

Honey Butter Crisp - Lightly whipped and clovered honey drizzled on peppery, sea-salted chips. Super buttery, sweet and salty... with a little kick of spice.

This is definitely a honey and butter note - the honey here is a really sticky, dark golden rich scent, although it has a little touch of creaminess to it as well. After dry down, the salty chips peek through a little more. Although I've never actually had honey butter crisps, this definitely reminds me of barbeque honey chicken wings, it's got that lovely roasted saltiness with a nice balance of hot, crispy caramlized honey on top. Although I wouldn't wear this scent on myself to an event, I love it in the privacy of my own kitchen. 

Hope Tea -  Plum blossoms, oolong tea, rice milk, ylang ylang, sugar and yuzu.

Straight out, a huge punch of plum blossoms and sweet fruit syrup - a touch of orange, apricot, berries and apple. This doesn't read as yuzu to me, yuzu for me tends to lean a bit more bitter and sharp, a bit more like blood oranges or grapefruit, but this blend is overall far sweeter and doesn't have the same punch and zing that citrus has. I do love the fruity lightness of the opening though, I find it really lovely and bright. After dry down (about 30 minutes), there's a slight touch more of the oolong tea with the bitterness, and the herbal sweetness from the ylang ylang (its very faint). I wish I got more rice milk - I'd love more of that soft nuttiness, but I think this scent really goes with the name - it's a bright, soft and sweet scent that has an uplifting zing from the fruity sweetness and I really like it. 

On the note of rice milk - I now really want a soy bean drink scent. I neeeeeddd it. 

Disclaimer: These scents were sent for review. I was not sponsored for this review or affiliated with this brand, and all opinions are my own, and do not reflect the brand's opinions or interests.