The Bubble Tea Factory Review | Singapore’s Instaworthy Theme Park
Where there are Asians, there is bubble tea. And it seems like the outlets in Asia just can’t stop one-upping each other.
In Kuala Lumpur, we have an entire street full of animal-themed bubble tea outlets located side by side. It’s easy to have a dinner of bubble tea – three bubble tea drinks is enough for a full meal. And yes, I actually did this once! It was pretty intense, but so so good.
Or if drinks aren’t quite your thing (what a shame!), you can opt for boba-inspired dishes. Boba hotspot, Cempedak Boba Pizzas (by MyPizzaLab, which consistently comes up with quirky, local dishes), boba toast, and boba crab just to name a few.
But what if all that STILL isn’t enough?
Well, Singapore has the answer: The Bubble Tea Factory.
Located in SCAPE, Orchard Road, I actually don’t know how to label the Bubble Tea Factory. It is a strange, multi-sensory amalgamation of an exhibition, factory and theme park all rolled into one and spread over a sprawling 7,000 sq ft space.
And it comes with everything that a millennial could dream of:
- Bubble tea inspired Instagrammable hotspots at every corner;
- Secret rooms
- A fully immersive, gamified experience (with a bonus gift at the end if you complete the challenge)
- Massive lilac ball pit for adults (but no diving and jumping allowed) – there are 100,000 lilac balls in them!
- One free bubble tea & bubble tea flavoured treat
- Bubble tea merchandise if you haven’t had your fill of bubble tea; and
- Have I already mentioned how Instagrammable the entire place is?! You’ll see soon enough.
Now I’m always down for the gamified experience and if it is an experience that has been dolled up for Instagram and comes with a free drink…. Well, let’s say this was a no brainer experience for me when I popped down to Singapore earlier in December.
Just a note of warning:
The Bubble Tea Factory is a temporary exhibition/factory/theme park. Originally scheduled to run from 19th October – 18th December 2019, the Bubble Tea Factory recently announced that it will be prolonging the experience until the 18th January 2020.
They might extend again (why not, if there’s a demand for it?) but I won’t bet on it. So if you really want to try this out, head on over before mid January 2020!
P/S: Don’t forget to pin this post!
Table of Contents
Fun Facts About The Bubble Tea Factory (or “TBTF”)
Here are some fun, quick facts about Singapore’s Bubble Tea theme park:
- TBTF is the first of its kind in Singapore.
- It refers to itself as “an immersive, multi-sensory journey that takes you through an enchanting world of bubble tea.”
- There are over 10 Instagrammable installations located in the factory.
- Spanning across more than 10 playful, visually spectacular installations, you will be treated to an experience like no other!
- TBTF says your entire experience should take roughly 45 minutes – 1 hour. Personally, it took us around 2 hours! Oops.
- Some, but not all rooms are wheelchair friendly. If this is a concern, please check with [email protected]
Things to Note Before Visiting the Bubble Tea Factory in Singapore
Instagram Outfit
TBTF was curated for Millenials. If you’re doing this for the ‘gram, make sure you come suitably attired. Most things are in pastel pink colours, so plan accordingly!
Toilets
There are NO TOILETS in the Bubble Tea Factory. So before your time slot, make sure you head into SCAPE & use the free toilet. TBTF is located in the basement of SCAPE, so it’s really a 1-2 minutes walk away.
One-Way Journey
TBTF is a straightforward “maze”.
You move easily from one area to the next but a word of warning: once you move to the next room, you can’t go back! So use the map you weren’t given to make sure you don’t miss out on anything.
There are #TBTF helpers everywhere
And I really mean everywhere!
There are plenty of helpers in every section of the exhibition (or factory?). They are so friendly. One of them even lent me her personal hotspot when I couldn’t connect to the free WiFi just so that I could do my Instagram-related challenge!
Free WiFi at TBTF
Yes, there is FREE WiFi. Personally, I found the connection dodgy. Don’t rely on this if you can.
I had no choice given that I was a foreigner with no data! 🙁
TBTF can be a solo experience (but I wouldn’t really recommend it)
You can do this exhibition alone & ask the helpers to take your photo. But it’s an experience that is a lot more fun if shared with friends and family!
No storage facilities anywhere
TBTF warns you at the very start that there are no storage facilities available on site.
Given that you will be walking around and posing the whole time, try to minimise any luggage you’re carrying when travelling to SCAPE.
About TBTF Tickets
- You will need a ticket to access the Bubble Tea Factory, which can be purchased at the TBTF website here.
- TBTF tickets have specific time slots, with up to 80 persons allowed per admission. You have a grace period of 15 minutes. If you miss it, your ticket is forfeited.
- A single ticket goes for $28 (USD 21 / RM 86) and group tickets are $23 (USD 17 / RM 70.30) each.
- You can qualify for group tickets only if you come in a group of more than 10.
- Contact TBTF if you have more than 20 people coming.
- Ticket prices do not include an additional $1.51 (USD 1.11 / RM 4.61) processing fee.
- Tickets are NOT refundable or exchangeable.
- Tickets sell out fast! Book in advance to secure your place.
Opening Hours: 2pm – 8pm (after 18 December 2019) Sat, Sun, Public Holiday and the eve of Public Holiday: 10am – 10pm Address: *SCAPE, 2 Orchard Link, Singapore 237978 (Level 1) |
The actual TBTF website can be accessed here.
For Children
- Children above 3 years old: Ticket required (proof of age required)
- Children under 12 years old: Must be accompanied by an adult & under supervision at all times.
What to Bring to this Bubble Tea Theme Park
- Instagram-worthy clothes (worn)
- Camera/phone with lots of memory available
- Your extroverted, I’ve-got-no-shame, self.
- Your pre-booked ticket.
What Isn’t Permitted
- Strollers
- Selfie sticks
- Tripods
- Bags larger than a regular backpack: if you carry anything bigger, you might be refused entry!!
- Pets (I’m just waiting for the day that someone creates an Instagrammable experience for pets. Or maybe it’s already happened…)
Experiencing Singapore’s Bubble Tea Factory
Still with me? This next part will be my full review of the actual TBTF experience and comes with LOADS of photos.
WARNING:
Full spoilers ahead. If you want your Bubble Tea Factory experience to be completely novel, skip this part until! Otherwise, onwards we go.
First things first, you need to find the entrance to the Bubble Tea Factory. We had difficulties finding the entrance at SCAPE.
At first, we thought this magical rainbow staircase sloping downwards, with a view through the misted glass to the iconic lilac ball pit was the entrance. The only problem was that there was a solid wall at the end and no way to get through.
We thought it was a secret door that needed a secret code or time slot before it unlocked…
We were WRONG!
The entrance is actually beneath where we were standing.
If you’re facing this flight of rainbow stairs, turn to either side and walk down the slope towards where a glass cafe is located behind you. You will see another flight of stairs sloping down to the basement in front of the cafe.
This is the correct entrance!
Walk down the stairs through the automatic sliding door. There is a place to put your umbrella if it’s raining just before entering the factory.
Once inside, you will see the registration counter in front.
Towards your right, you will find a small merchandise area. You will reencounter this upon exiting the factory.
Towards your left is a closed door. That is where you will begin your bubble tea experience.
Entrance / Exit
Registration
First, walk up to the registration counter. You will get your queue number here, as well as a pink Boba Booster Pack.
If you open your Boba Booster Pack, you will find a complete map of the factory as well as a packet of booster cards!! There are 3 types of cards available (you will know what they are depending on their heading):
Everyone gets 2 challenge cards. Here are some of them:
- Help someone take a group photo in the Pearl Pit (everyone got this one)
- Use our Boba Bae IG story filter & show how funky you are (I get an extra treat when I completed this!)
- Tell someone (you just met) they are your boba bae
From what I can see, everyone gets these 3 Power Up cards with every Boba Booster Pack:
- Bobalicious Treats: Get a free cup of bubble tea flavoured treats
- Free bubble tea – the highlight!
- 10% off TBTF merchandise
If you’re kiasu (i.e. competitive) like me, the collectable cards are going to interest you the most. Every Boba Booster Pack contains 3 random collectable cards. You need to find all 10 different cards to get a mystery prize.
This is where attending the TBTF as a large group gives you an advantage. You can pool your cards to hopefully create a complete set.
These cards CAN’T be earned inside the factory. Either you have enough among yourselves, buy another ticket to the factory OR exchange with some other attendees at the factory.
Each card has a unique pop culture reference. Can you identify them all?
The photo above shows all the cards we had after pooling our Booster packs together.
Boba-Verse
The Factory
This is the first room & where your briefing happens beside this wall.
There is a nice grey wall that welcomes everyone! Saying:
Here’s where your journey truly begins! From this moment on, everything you see, hear, touch, smell, or even taste, could reveal the hidden secrets and surprises within TBTF’s walls so pay close attention and stay observant! Are you ready to intrigue your senses? #tbtfsg
There was also a frame on the wall showing a complete set of the collectable cards we were supposed to get to win a mystery gift. The last 2 cards have sparkles. So much envy here as we couldn’t find it!
This room displays the inner workings of the bubble tea factory. There’s a pastel-coloured machine around which giant “pearls” roll around. Like in a production line.
Nothing much to do here about from taking a photo of the bubble producing machine.
Once you’re done, time to move on. You shouldn’t spend more than 2-3 minutes here.
Enchanted Forest
The Enchanted Forest is really a short enclosed passageway that is lit by green neon lights. They are meant to illuminate bubble tea straws.
Pretty, no?
Once you’ve taken your photo, push through the closed door to enter…
Blue Coral Utopia
Pastel coloured utopia. Here, you also get your first stationed helper who will be on hand to explain that there are two doors leading out of this room. Either the side hole on the ground that you will need to crawl through (on the left), or was an orange curtain.
Pick the one on the left and crawl through.
In the end, you will end up in the same space but it makes more chronological sense to go through the left door.
But before you leave (because you can’t come back), check out the upside-down bubble tea cup trees! The cups have air vents with pearls twirling within, with more miniature versions making up the rest of the “forest”.
P/S: Try speaking into the trees with the straws. Your friend at the adjacent tree just might hear you!
Boba Lab
Wrap Zone
If you picked the left tunnel, you will emerge in a futuristic silver wrap zone. It’s basically aluminium foil covering every inch of the space, with long silver beads dangling from the ceiling.
The moment we emerged from the tunnel, a new helper came to experience the room (which opens up to a wider space and the place you’d have emerged into if you’re picked the door on the right in Blue Coral Utopia).
Honestly, the helper spoke too fast for me to be able to catch anything that he said but the items in the space are pretty figure-outable:
Pose, click and Instagram the experience.
Boba Lab
Once you’re done with the Wrap Zone, move forward. This place is called “Boba Lab” and is one of the largest space with many things to see.
First, a photo wall of bubble teas. Can you identify all the pop culture references??
Boba-Jection
Next, the infamous “A dose of BBT” pink room that you have probably seen flooding Instagram.
It’s essentially a room with a patient’s seat and a fake IV drip. You can pretend to have overdosed from a direct injection of bubble tea into your veins! Because extra just isn’t extra enough when you’re in a place like this. 😉
I honestly debated for a while before deciding to take this picture, but I’m glad I did. After all, I knew I wasn’t returning!
Taro-bly Wreck
Right beside “A Dose of BBT”, you get the Miley Cyrus inspired wrecking ball room.
Again, another Instagram moment, which I didn’t do because… honestly, I’ve never watched it. So I don’t actually know how Miley Cyrus poses with a giant orange ball.
Experimental Treats
Use your Bobalicious Treats Power Up card to redeem your small cup of treats. It consists of bubble tea flavoured popcorn and brown sugar beans.
Honestly, it tasted more like bubble gum. And way too sweet for my taste. Which is ironic given that I was at a bubble tea theme park of all places.
XXL BBT
A giant bubble tea cup awaits. Just walk to the back and pretend to be stuck inside the cup!
Right side this giant cup, you will see a bubble tea-inspired rubbish bin. Throw your disposable cup here when you’ve finished with your treat.
Smells Like Tea Spirit
Once you’re done, time to head towards the wall. You will see many protruding metal boxes. Each of them has a particular smell that relates to its description. Malty, tart, tropical…
Honestly, a lot of them smelled the same. But it’s a fun way to pass the time as you’re lining up to move to the next room.
The Secret
Boba Ballin’
There was a long queue to access Boba Ballin’ because they were very strict on the number of people allowed into this small room, with good reason.
This place is meant to mimic a bubble tea boss’s room and has all the extra-ness you can imagine:
- Bubble tea fake money strewn everywhere
- Gold toilet bowls you can pose on
- A giant tub you can crawl into
And on the far right, there is a full-length mirror.
LOOK AT THIS CLOSELY.
???
??? is the secret room that the Bubble Tea Factory helpers will have told you about at the start of the experience. This place is found BEHIND the long mirror mentioned earlier.
Very, very few people are allowed in here because the platform space is so small. Everyone gets only 1 MINUTE in this room. They are also really strict on timing so make sure you get all the shots you want ASAP!
The balls glow and change colour frequently; a little like the teamLab borderless experience, if you’ve been to one. It’s a Yayoi Kusama inspired pearl room and one you should definitely not miss.
Once you’re done, exit ??? and Boba Ballin’ and get back to the main space you were in earlier. Go through the door beside the giant bubble tea cup.
Pearl-duction Line
Personality Chamber
The first thing you will see is three pink doors on your right: Grumpy, Joyful and YOLO.
When you open Grumpy door, you get a bunch of angry cups sipping bubble tea.
YOLO reveals a bunch of happy bubble tea drinks with the heading, “EAT. DRINK. BUBBLE TEA. REPEAT.”
When you open Joyful, SURPRISE! You get an entire room filled with silver confetti and a helper stationed there to take your Instagram / Boomerang shot. Some blogs talk about multicoloured confetti, but they were entirely silver when I was there.
And thankfully, no icky hair clumps and such on the floor as we were gathering the confetti for the photo!
Once done, exit. It’s time to reveal what’s in front of those three doors
Pearl Pit
The famous bubble tea pearl pit! This is going to be one of the most congested/popular areas. You’ll have probably seen this on Instagram.
This is also the place to use your challenge card and help someone else take their group photo in the pearl pit.
Before getting into the pit, make sure you take your shoes and leave it in the racks beside the pit. Leave your bags too. You’re advised to leave your phones in your bags. if you ever lose it in the pit, it’s going to be really hard to find it again!
Honestly, 100,000 pearl balls are quite a lot. The moment you lie back, you sink straight under a mountain of lilac pearl balls. They also have lots of fun items around to use, like a giant tapioca net to scoop your pearls and throw it at each other.
WARNING
No diving or jumping into the pit is permitted for safety reasons.
Ode to My Pearl
You can’t miss the giant see-saw with a bubble tea drink at the end.
Nor the interesting series of posters decorating the wall.
But really, the highlight of “Ode to My Peal” is making your own bubble tea! This is where you use your Power Up Card to redeem a free drink.
They give a helpful chart on drinks you might want to make. This chart is situated next to Station 1, where you have to choose your toppings.
There is NO LIMIT to how many toppings you get but the cup is only so big. If you like your tea, please don’t fill the cup up too much as I did.
Be sure to check out the guide for suggestions on the number of scoops to take. I ignored it oops.
Next up: Haagen Daas ice-cream! You have two choices: vanilla or chocolate.
I honestly thought it was weird at first but I would recommend taking it.
When all is said and done, the tea is going to be hot. You’re going to be shaking and mixing everything so you wouldn’t even have any ice-cream left when you’re drinking.
That said, ice-cream isn’t really an essential part of a bubble tea (my humble view) so you can also skip.
You also get to pick your fruity flavour (I skipped this), followed by your choice of sugar: caramel, brown sugar and sugar. When in doubt, I would advise opting for brown sugar. We’re making bubble tea, after all!
There was a fridge of ice cubes located by the table of sugar. Don’t miss this if you want a cold drink.
And finally, the tea section: green tea or milk tea (pick this!)
The final part of the DIY bubble tea making process: sealing the lid. There is a helper here who will help you with that.
Drinks Collection
And voila! Your drink is ready.
Time to drink at one of the “oil barrel” stations (you will get to see one later in this post).
Interesting Fact The bubble tea vendors change every 2 weeks. I got Gongcha when I went, which is a popular bubble tea franchise in Singapore and Malaysia. Some earlier visitors got their brown sugar bubble tea from Jenjudan, which is a Taiwanese bubble tea brand. |
Milk-Tea Way
Tea Terminal
If you’re ready to move on, line up at the “tea terminal”. A helper will come and direct you into the next space when it’s available
Air BBT
A bubble tea private jet! How pretty is this? Complete with fake champagne and a boba universe twirling outside your window.
Happiness Wall
The final room of the entire Bubble Tea Factory experience.
The Happiness Wall is really a place where prior visitors have left their comments and reviews on the wall.
There is also a place to leave your comments on the iPads stationed above several BBT oil barrels.
And finally, a photo printing booth!
Every visitor is entitled to 1 free printout of a photo of your choice. To be eligible:
- Post the BBT photo you want to have printed on your public Instagram account. The account must be public
- Make sure the photo comes with the hashtag #TBTFSG
- Once posted, the machine will detect pictures appearing under that hashtag.
- The helper will help you to choose your photo and print your personalised polaroids. The perfect souvenir!
Merchandise Area
Once you leave the Happiness Wall, you’re back where you first started in front of the merchandise store.
Unless you’d like to purchase some BBT merchandise, this is the end of the road.
Now wasn’t that one of the most interesting, Insta-worthy experiences you’ve ever seen?
Personal Verdict
To wrap this post up, I thought I’d give a quick, personal verdict:
I loved it.
I’ll admit that I’m not the biggest bubble tea fan although I do enjoy a drink or two.
Instead, what really won me over was the gamification of the entire bubble tea factory escape. And of course, how Instagrammable everything was. Definitely qualifies as one of the most instagrammable places in Singapore.
There was so much thought put into every part of the experience. In particular, I loved:
- That they had so many helpers placed all over the factory. Knowing that we could always approach someone for help really elevated the experience
- Trying their best to get all their attendees to engage with each other through the collection/exchange of booster cards. And also directly addressing the issue at the welcome briefing but giving clear examples of how people could overcome the “awkwardness” of approaching strangers prior to seeking an exchange.
- Everything was linked back in some way to the bubble tea experience
- It engaged many different senses: visual (overload), taste (yummy bubble tea), smell and touch.
- Everything was so instaworthy! Creating such places is actually a lot harder to execute so I really admire what the Bubble Tea Factory has done here.
- Secret room! Even if its location was obvious, the fact that it was “secret” made it so much more exciting
- Its bubble tea cards each had big pop culture references.
- There was a great crowd control system in place. Despite being busy, the experience never felt overwhelming
- How they very cleverly got us to do indirect TBTF online promotion by insisting that we post our photo & tag it on a public Instagram account before we got our free photo. Getting people to do online social promotion of any sort is ridiculously hard so this was quite a clever way of having people do it! The blogger in me appreciates this.
- FREE DIY bubble tea! Cheap thrill, but I loved it. Free food is an eternal win.
- Perfect souvenirs in the form of booster cards.
- Ability to control how many mystery cards: I’ll bet the last 2 sparkly collectable cards are really limited since no one we met had even 1 of them! Control the number of these cards, and you limit the number of gifts you have to prepare.
Other Bubble Tea Shops in Singapore
Oh, and if you happen to be in Singapore and still have bubble tea cravings, these are some of the brands you can look out for:
- *The Alley
- *Tiger Sugar
- *Gong cha
- *Koi
- *Chatime
- Yi Dian Dian
The shops with the added *asterisk are bubble tea chains that are also present in Malaysia.
Conclusion
Phew, this was a long post at 4000+ words! Hope you stuck around.
If you enjoyed it or still have some questions, feel free to leave a comment below. I’d love to hear if you also went for the Bubble Tea Factory experience. I still wonder what that “mystery gift” is… and whether anyone got to redeem it!
And finally, you can click HERE to follow me on my travel journeys around the world.
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18 Comments
Candice
It definitely sounds like a fun place to visit. Unfortunately for me I won’t be able to see it before it closes. It sounds like it would have been a great experience.
Iuliya
That’s very unfortunate 🙁 hopefully they decide to extend this or make it a more permanent exhibition!!
Stacy
WOW!! This is beautiful. Looks amazing and all the details. I will bookmark this page, save it to Pinterest, save it on my mission board. You have made me add Singapore to my travel bucket list and what a detailed and helpful post.
Iuliya
I’m so glad to hear that it has inspired you!! 🙂
Rudy @ Backpack & Snorkel
That sounds absolutely amazing. I love Taro Bubble Tea! Sadly, we will go to Singapore in 2021, meaning that we will likely miss this.
I loved seeing that you wrote: “Kuala Lumpur, we have an entire street full of animal-themed bubble tea outlets”. That means that I have one more place to go in Kuala Lumpur!
Iuliya
Yes, it’s a crazy street and so so popular!! There are always long queues so you know which bubble tea shops to target too 😉
Sage
Although not a Millennial, my 13-year-old LOVES bubble tea and would LOVE this experience. How cool!
Iuliya
It’s crazy what is popping up these days, isn’t it?!
Anna
I haven’t even tried bubble tea yet but heard soo much about it, it’s definitely coming up very soon! You’re right, where Asians are, there’s bubble tea so it’s pretty much possible to find it anywhere. For someone, like me, who’s a bit older than the millenials it’s so fascinating to see that a place like this, an exhibition about a type of drink, can exist and how much it’s loved. I agree with you, it’s best to have friends or family for picture taking.
Iuliya
Bubble tea is honestly something that can appeal to anyone, not just millennials!! There are so many varieties these days it’s all about finding your favourite type. I recommend taro if it’s possible for you to find any near where you live! 😉
Jen
What an interesting place to visit! Great info – ESP the no toilets part – that is a must know before attending! 😂👍🏻
Iuliya
Toilets are SOOO important!! Glad you found it helpful😂😂
Michelle
This looks like a fun, quirky experience…right up my alley! I love all of the colorful displays. They are truly perfect for some fun pics! Thanks for sharing!
Iuliya
You’re welcome!
Katja | placesandnotes
Oh wow, I´m not the biggest Bubble Tea fan, but I love to try new tastes and visit such quirky places, which to be honest are mostly found in Asia in my exoeriences haha. As I have family ove rin Singapore which i often visit, I hope they make it a permanent thing and I can go check it out 🙂 Thanks for sharing!
Iuliya
YES! We have some of the wackiest things around and some of them are a lot of fun!
Darla
Wow! This looks like a ton of fun! I’d love to visit if I get a chance to get to Singapore!
Iuliya
It’d be great if it was a permanent exhibition!