The Alley Lujiaoxiang (Tokyo) – Famous for Delicious Brown Sugar Milk and Aurora Drinks!

During our recent trip to Tokyo, we checked out The Alley Lujiaoxiang at Lumine shopping mall in Shinjuku. This super popular bubble tea chain is famous for its Assam milk tea, Brown Sugar Milk, and Aurora Drink Series. The queue was really long but our wait was definitely worth it! Update 20 March 2019: it’s confirmed, The Alley Luxe will be opening at at Orchard Cineleisure (Singapore) in mid-April 2019!

The Alley Lujiaoxiang (Tokyo)

The Alley Lujiaoxiang (鹿角巷) is a bubble milk tea chain that was founded in Taiwan in 2013. It has since expanded rapidly across the world with branches in Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Paris, Australia, USA, and many more countries.

It is known as The Alley Xiejiaoxiang (斜角巷) in Taiwan and some other countries.

The Alley opened its first Tokyo branch in June 2017. Since then, due to its crazy popularity with the locals, it has already expanded to 15 branches across Tokyo!

Looking through the nifty menu while in the queue, I saw that it offers five different series of drinks: Tapioca, Brown Sugar Tapioca, Milk Tea, Fresh Tea and The Alley Speciality.

The popular drinks are Royal No.9 Tapioca Milk Tea, Brown Sugar Tapioca Latte, and the Aurora Speciality Drinks.

High Quality Ingredients

The Alley is known for making its tapioca pearls in house. These are known as Deerioca Pearls, affectionately named after their deer mascot.

The sugar cane syrup are prepared in house too by boiling high-quality natural sugar canes. This gives their bubble tea drinks a delicate sweetness that is not overpowering.

And The Alley also claims to use high quality Assam tea leaves that are meticulously hand-picked, which explains their bubble tea drinks’ aromatic tea fragrance.

Super Long Queue!

When we dropped by The Alley branch in Lumine mall on a Monday at around 8.30pm, we were amazed to see over 20 people in the queue!

This was despite us going on a weekday during off peak hours. The Alley must be doing something right in Tokyo.

Royal No. 9 Tapioca Milk Tea

Luckily, the queue moved quite fast and we got our drinks in about 20 minutes. The Royal No. 9 Tapioca Milk Tea (JPY500) is The Alley’s signature bubble milk tea drink and is sold at all its overseas outlets.

It had a very smooth texture and a pleasant sweet milk tea taste that was not overwhelming. And I liked that it had a subtle tea fragrance.

The pearls had a great chewy texture that felt really good in my mouth. On the whole this was quite a satisfying bubble milk tea drink, but I felt it would have tasted better if it had a slightly thicker texture.

Brown Sugar Tapioca Latte

The Brown Sugar Tapioca Latte (JPY650) is a brown sugar latte drink. This was my favourite drink by The Alley!

The drink was wonderfully rich and creamy with a sinfully sweet taste. And I simply loved its rich milky flavour! Together with the chewy tapioca pearls, this was one super delicious drink.

Note that the drink is quite sweet, so if you do not have a sweet tooth, you should go for the Royal No. 9 Milk Tea instead. As for me, I definitely preferred the Brown Sugar drink!

“Bonsai” Garden Tapioca Milk Tea

We went back to The Alley a second time (yes we love bubble tea) and ordered the “Bonsai” Garden Tapioca Milk Tea (JPY600). This is a bubble milk tea drink with a generous topping of cocoa powder.

I mixed in the cocoa powder with the milk tea and took a sip. The slight bitter taste of the cocoa blended nicely with the sweetness of the milk tea to produce a well-balanced flavour.

This drink is good for people who want a less-sweet bubble milk tea drink.

Aurora Drink Series

We didn’t get to try the unique Aurora Drinks Series, which have poetic names like “Morning Sunshine”, “In Love with Lemonway” and “Northern Lights”. Hopefully we can get to try them when The Alley Singapore opens!

The Alley (Singapore)

Yes you read that right! As announced on their Instagram page, The Alley will be opening in Singapore soon. We are really excited and will be providing updates once we get any. So watch this space!

Update 20 March 2019: It’s confirmed! The Alley will be opening its premium concept store “The Alley Luxe” at Orchard Cineleisure in mid-April 2019. They will also be opening a second outlet in Jewel Changi Airport soon!

The Alley Tokyo Menu (Click to enlarge)

Conclusion

The Alley Lujiaoxiang bubble tea is a must-try if you are in Tokyo. Our favourites are the Royal No. 9 Tapioca Milk Tea and Brown Sugar Tapioca Latte. My only qualm is that the drinks are rather expensive, but I guess that’s because they use high quality ingredients. And judging from the long queues we saw, it’s safe to say the Japanese locals are more than willing to pay the premium.

The Alley Lujiaoxiang (Lumine)
What to order: Royal No. 9 Tapioca Milk Tea (JPY500), Brown Sugar Tapioca Latte (JPY600)
English Address: Nishi-Shinjuku, 1 Chome 1-1-5 Lumine 1 B2F
Japanese Address: 東京都新宿区西新宿1-1-5 ルミネ新宿 LUMINE1 B2F
Directions: B2 floor of Lumine 1 Shopping Mall, Near South Exit of Shinjuku Station
Opening Hours: | Daily 8am to 10pm |
Phone: +813 6258 0507

Other Locations
Website: www.the-alley.jp

This article is part of our super awesome Ultimate Tokyo Travel Guide For First Timers. Everything you need to know about Tokyo is just a click away!