When I saw that Honkai: Star Rail was having a special collaboration event with Sunright Tea Studio, I was intrigued. Most HoYoverse collabs in the past have been exclusive to locations in Asia, so it’s a rare occasion for one of these to happen in the United States. On top of that, there happened to be a Sunright about 15 minutes away from me, so I decided to check it out.
The event officially began on July 19, and my brother happened to be in the area, so we paid a visit that evening. I wasn’t expecting too much of a crowd since, well, how many passionate anime gacha game lovers could there be in my little city?
Turns out, quite a few. The place was bright and bustling. A sports car wrapped in anime girl vinyl sat proudly outside. The store itself was full of boba enjoyers posing with cardboard stands and posters of Kafka and Blade, the two new characters in Honkai: Star Rail. Two baristas worked frantically behind the counter as a trail of paper tickets spewed forth from a printer.
After waiting in line to order, we made it to the kiosk. There are two themed drinks as part of the collab event: Kafka’s Blushing Blueberry Splendor and Blade’s Karmic Chocolate Matcha. They’re quite expensive at $6.75 before taxes — ”Star Rail robbery,” my brother called it. I ordered one of each, for review purposes of course. It took almost an hour from arriving at the store to receiving our drinks.
Buy tea, get goodies
The primary reason Star Rail fans might want to attend this event is because of the additional items you get with each drink. Buying two or more of the collaboration drinks gets you:
- Two cards with an image of Kafka or Blade that come with codes for in-game items
- Two square cardstock coasters with chibi images of Kafka or Blade
- Two themed cardboard drink holders
- A few stickers featuring chibis of various Star Rail characters (amount can vary)
The Blushing Blueberry Splendor is a blueberry smoothie with some cheese foam and jasmine tea jelly. It’s quite sweet (I recommend 50% sugar) with a strong blueberry flavor. The jasmine tea jelly has a satisfying consistency, but I wasn’t sure if I liked having it in a drink. It was very thick and chunky, being a smoothie with bits of blueberries and jelly. Drinking the whole thing felt like I had eaten a full meal. Still, I thought it was tasty and worth trying.
The Karmic Chocolate Matcha is basically fancy chocolate milk with some matcha in it. I’m not typically a fan of matcha, but the slight bitterness of the chocolate and matcha together was quite nice. It was creamy, smooth, and sweet, but not too sweet. I preferred the chocolate matcha over Kafka’s blueberry smoothie.
Many of my friends are avid Honkai: Star Rail fans but didn’t have a Sunright Tea Studio location near them, so I ended up making multiple trips to grab some goodies for them. The crowds have thankfully decreased, so you probably won’t have to wait as long as I did on the first day. The collaboration event lasts until August 31, so there’s still some time for Trailblazers to try these drinks and get some souvenirs!
Published: Aug 21, 2023 03:00 pm