A to Z 2025 – Yoghurt (frozen)

I confess I am not a great fan of autobiographies that begin at the beginning and follow a temporal path up to the present day – not that the person might not have some interesting stories, facts and opinions strung on their necklace, but it just doesn’t appeal as a structure. On the other hand, in my last, extra year at school in Oxford, retaking an A-level and adding a couple more, I was allowed out of school on my recognisance and saw a fascinating Exhibition at the Modern Art Gallery. The Artist had laid out and photographed every single possession of a single person – for example, all the cutlery was laid out in one shot, all the shoes in another. This more thematic approach appeals more and although I am not arranging the objects which I have chosen to tell my story in chronological order, I hope that my writing will be sufficiently interesting to keep your interest Dear Reader, and that on the journey from A to Z, you will assemble an impression of my life and who I am…

Yoghurt (frozen)

After Frewin’s closed down, I was approached by someone who wanted to open a Frozen Yoghurt/Boba Tea bar in Bradford . “What’s Boba Tea?” I asked… I never really understood until some of the supplies for making it arrived – more of that later. Once we opened, the partnership inexplicably fell apart and I was left to run the business on my own – which made it pretty much a lifestyle living.

The first year, Ramadan, fell in high Summer, which meant that the predominantly Moslem population, broke their fast very late in the evening with Iftar, a small thing to eat before going to the mosque for prayers, followed by a race home to eat properly. My frozen yoghurt was perfect for Iftar and also as a desert for families’ main meals and so I was doing well enough to employ staff whilst I delivered frozen yoghurts in my car!

After that first Summer, business levelled off and I had only one part-time staff member in the evenings. On really quiet Winter nights, I had my trusty Ukulele out and learned a lot of new songs…

Not everything was rosy, some months in, three men ram-raided the shop in the early hours of the morning, trying to steal the icecream machine which is what makes the frozen yoghurt. Mine was a double machine (two flavours or a mixture of both) – it was so heavy that it took four body-builders to lift it onto the counter in the first place so these guys didn’t stand a chance – they got two steps and then dropped it! Meanwhile, a neighbour who had heard the crash ran downstairs, picked up a length of two-by-two and broke their car backwindow as they made their getaway! The plus side was that no publicity is bad publicity and if you search for Zezt online, the newspaper article is still there and brought in a flurry of business once the mess was cleared up…

So what is Boba Tea? If you have never encountered it, it’s either a milky drink or a thin, fruity smoothie type drink which has Boba, made from tapioca, flavoured with black tea and about the size of a marrowfat pea. You drink boba tea through a very thick plastic straw and when one of the boba is sucked up, after initial resistance, it rushes up and pops into your mouth. There are many variations of boba tea, in Taiwan, the epicentre of the phenomenon, cafes often make up their own recipes from scratch, but of course, as it spread, commercial powder mixes have standardised the process. Then there are the Boba themselves, the original black tea tapioca balls have been augmented with Popping Pearls – juice-filled capsules that literally burst in your mouth; jelly in all shapes and sizes (as long as they fit up the straw).

Then of course there were the customers… I grew a very happy and loyal customer base amongst whom was the group below. It’s not often that you can be witness to a moment of profound change in a person’s life, but Connie, second from left, took her friends to an evening of Asian crafts – principally Mehndi, or decorative Henna work. They came, as they did quite regularly, for a frozen yoghurt before going to the event, and for another one afterwards only this time, they had all had Mehndi decorations done on their arms. Connie was so taken with the process that she began practising it and within a year was making the pilgrimage to HennaCon in America and she has never looked back! You can find her on Istagram here.

I had a little trepidation about opening Zest, a dessert shop, in that location, situated as I was between three restaurants, fearing they might resent me cutting into their trade; however, I needn’t have worried because what I came to learn is this. Molsems don’t drink alcohol and so whereas English people might go for a meal in a restaurant having mains, dessert and then more drinks and coffee – making a night of it in one establishment, Moslems may go to one restaurant for their main course, bur then to spin the evening out, they leave and go to another restaurant for their dessert – so no probs!
The shop was too small to develop and grow beyond a one-man band lifestyle choice and with only one afternoon off, midweek, I became exhausted and decided to move on to pastures unknown, but not before, unbeknownst to me, my current bosses, visited the shop and I am sure that having seen what I had managed to create on my own – that is why they offered me the job…