DELICIOUS TAIWANESE BAKED GOODS, BUBBLE TEA ON THE MENU AT IHADAY
Businesses and non-profit organizations regularly open and move in Saskatoon. Today the Starphoenix talks to Chris Chang, who recently opened Ihaday Tea and Bun House with his wife Felicity Lin in the Lawson Heights area of Saskatoon.
Chris and Felicity came to Canada seven years ago from Taiwan, and after years of operating a seasonal ice cream store in Elbow they decided to open their own bakery and bubble tea house. Ihaday allows them to bring a wide range of Taiwanese-style baking to Saskatoon, as well as a huge selection of bubble tea, with ingredients imported from their native country through the Ihaday franchise owner in Regina.
Q Why did you decide to open Ihaday Tea and Bun House?
A Because we love to eat Taiwanese baked goods, but we could not find any in Saskatoon. My friend in Regina opened the first Ihaday in Canada. He wanted us to use his logo and the name of the store. He has four franchise stores with one more in Regina, one in Moose Jaw and the other one in Swift Current. He allows all the franchise stores to do whatever they want, but all the Ihaday stores have the same drinks. We are the only Ihaday to have a bakery department.
Q What does Ihaday mean?
A Ihaday is a Taiwanese pronunciation meaning “I take a sip of hot tea”. But we have hot and cold tea, as well as baking.
Q Is there a difference between Taiwanese and Canadian baking ?
A What makes our buns different from Canadian buns is our dough. Taiwanese style dough is more spongy, fluffy and softer.
Q What are some baked products that you serve?
A Our most popular item is the honey spices cheese stick. They are about 12 inches long and like a soft bread stick sprinkled with Italian spices and we apply a honey paste on the top. It tastes half savoury, half sweet. We also apply a little drizzle of Taiwanese mayonnaise, which is a little bit sweeter than Canadian mayonnaise.
We have a pudding cube that has a custard in the middle. Outside is a cream cookie crust. It's a little bit crunchy and a little bit sweet. This is popular in Taiwan, but with a different shape — in Taiwan they make it round. At the beginning we also made it round but it seemed to not sell very well. So we changed it to a cube and it sells better in a square shape.
We have a melon bun in three different flavours. The outside is a cream cookie crust. It's a little bit crunchy. Inside is a soft bun.
There are three different fillings. There is a green tea bun with a red bean paste inside. We have a chocolate one that also has raisins inside. And we've got a yellow one with butter, egg and powdered milk.
Some customers think our caramel apple bun is a real apple. It's actually a bun that has a little bit of apple chunks and caramel sauce with cinnamon inside. There is a leaf and stem on top that are both made out of cookie.
One more to mention is the hotdog cheese crown. Felicity makes our version of hotdog like a crown. We changed the shape and kids just love it.
There are many more items than this available. We carry certain items every day, and we make some products only on specific days. But some of our products you won't see anywhere else.
Q You also serve bubble tea?
A We have 34 different drinks. Eleven can be made cold or hot. The rest just come served cold. We basically have two categories of bubble tea. One is milky, one is fruity. And there's a combined fruity and milky. Our top seller is brown sugar boba milk tea. Second bestseller is pearl milk tea, which is a classic one with tapioca balls which look like bubbles. Our number three seller is caramel tea. Other top sellers are mango milk tea and mango green tea. Generally speaking, mango flavour is the most popular one of the fruity tea.
Q Are there steps to keep in mind in ordering bubble tea?
A To make an order of bubble tea, the first step is to choose your flavour of tea. Secondly, you decide the ice level you want in your drink. We have regular ice, less ice and no ice. Some drinks we can make either cold or hot, they are marked on the menu. The third step is to decide the sweetness. We have 100 per cent sugar level, 75 per cent, 50 per cent, 25 per cent or no sugar at
all. You make your own decision. Then the last step is to choose your own toppings to add to your drink.
Q What are some of your toppings?
A The most common topping is tapioca balls. After they are cooked, they are soaked in brown sugar. We serve our tea with a very wide straw so you can eat the tapioca balls through the straw. Other toppings we have are popping pearls. You try it and you'll know why we call it popping. Kids just love them. There is strawberry and mango popping pearls — they are smaller than the regular tapioca balls and not overly sweet. Popping pearls go wonderful with fruity tea.
There is also a pudding custard. It is similar pudding to the one we use in the pudding cube buns. The last topping you can add is red bean, which also goes in the adzuki bun and the melon bun. When served in the drink, we make it more creamy. You can add as many toppings as you want, but if you choose over three, there is no room for your drink.
Q What was your background before opening Ihaday?
A We were both born in Taiwan and grew up and met there. I was a software engineer for a semiconductor manufacturer for about 11 years. Felicity was a plastic surgeon, working on hands for 25 years. Before we came to Canada, I went to bakery school in Taiwan and I learned how to bake. I also even got a licence to drive a truck just in case I needed it. We didn't know what job we would find in Canada, so we just got ourselves well prepared.
We came to Canada in 2016 and bought a small ice cream shop in Elbow and ran it for about five years. It was a seasonal business from May to September. During one Canada Day I scooped ice cream from opening at 11 a.m. to 9:45 p.m. The next morning I
woke up with my wrist hurting so much, it was very hard to bend my fingers. We stayed in a trailer in Elbow for the whole business season but we had enough of living in a camper. I wanted to enjoy my house in Saskatoon. So we decided to open Ihaday. I taught Felicity how to bake, now she is doing better than me at baking.
Q What does a typical day look like for you at Ihaday?
A We both work from 6:30 a.m. until 7:30 p.m. Thirteen hours per day, six days per week. I help Felicity with the baking. We are both here at 6:30 a.m. baking. There are some other preparations for making tea that I do as well. I've got to cook the tapioca balls and brew the tea before we open. There's a lot of work.
Q Did you develop your recipes yourselves?
A The dough recipe I learned in school in Taiwan but Felicity created the wide variety of buns herself. All these buns are very new to the local people here.