Sip, sip hooray! Twins open boba shop in Winter Garden

Twin sisters Cristina Dewrell and Andrea Perlas are working together to bring their Filipino cultural heritage and family traditions to share with the community in Winter Garden. 

The longtime West Orange County residents opened their business, Dreamy Tea, in October off of West Colonial Drive.

The boba tea shop serves a variety of treats, including handcrafted boba teas, fruit tea, milk tea, smoothies, coffees, slushies, croffles, savory waffle dogs and specialty Filipino desserts.

“Coming from the Philippines, boba was something that was like what Starbucks is here where you see a shop on nearly every corner,” Perlas said. “Here, it’s starting to take off, but there are still a lot of people who are unfamiliar with the concept, and they end up loving it. I mean, we love it. We used to drive 30 minutes every other day just to get boba tea in areas like Mills 50. We finally decided to stop talking about opening a shop and just do it.”

‘WHAT’S YOUR DREAM?’

The sisters were born in the Philippines and previously lived in New York. They have called the West Orange County area home for more than 20 years. 

Dewrell and Perlas come from an entrepreneurial family. Their dad owned a bar and one of their uncles, who they refer to as a feather figure, works on Wall Street and has helped contribute essential business and financial knowledge. 

The sisters both have an extensive background in the food and beverage industry. 

While working on building their new business, Dewrell also works in banquets for Hilton and Perlas works at House of Blues in Disney Springs, as well as at Space 220 in Epcot.

The twins said they have been tossing around the idea of a boba shop for years. 

They hosted a grand opening for Dreamy Tea in October and were humbled by the support from family, friends and new customers. 

“We always knew we wanted to open a boba shop, but it was just a matter of actually starting and completing the process,” Dewrell said. “Because of the pandemic and other setbacks, this shop took us a few years to get up and running. Our family has been a huge part of the journey. During our startup time, we had tastings at our home and practiced taking and placing orders. We had our garage filled with supplies.”

The twins said they picked the Winter Garden area because of the location, the family aspect of the community and because there are not a lot of boba shops in the area.

Boba, also known as bubble tea, originated in the early 1980s in Taiwan.

Boba is made from tapioca starch, also known as cassava starch, which is why the product is also often labeled as "tapioca pearls." These pearls are small spheres often simmered in a brown sugar syrup to give them a sweet taste and dark black color.

Although boba is Dreamy Tea’s main selling point, the shop also is known for its specialty Filipino desserts, including Taho, which currently is only served Saturdays and Sundays. 

Taho is known as one of the most nostalgic Filipino desserts. The confection contains super silken tofu, warmed brown sugar syrup, caramelly sago and fresh boba.

Ube, a purple yam, and calamansi, a citrus hybrid plant that combines the flavor of a lime and orange, are other Filipino-inspired items at the shop.

Everything on the menu can be made non-dairy, and the shop also has gluten-free and sugar-free options.

“We love introducing new customers who have never had boba to the drink and helping create what flavors people enjoy,” Perlas said. “We always encourage our customers to try something new, and we love hearing feedback, whether good or bad. If someone has a bad experience, we always go out of our way to fix it. Customer experience is No. 1 for us.”

Dreamy Tea is now available on DoorDash and will soon be available on Uber Eats.

In addition to its food offerings, the shop has a lot of comfortable seating with tables, a dream wall, couches, board games and even a play area for children.

Photo by Annabelle Sikes

CREATING COMMUNITY

Dewrell and Perlas credit a lot of the shops' already blossoming positive reviews to their team, who mostly is made up of their niece, nephew and friends. 

Their niece, Isabella Betz, has worked at a lot of the bobs shops around town and knows what people like and what sells.

Betz did all of the drawings for the menu items, helped create the menu and also assists with the shop’s social media pages. She recently implemented adding chai to the menu.

“The opening of the shop has really been a learning experience for us,” Dewrell said. “We had to figure out what works and what doesn’t work, what tastes good and what doesn’t, and even how much product we need to make every day with the limited time expiration on the boba.” 

Boba has to be made fresh every day and gets thrown out every four hours.

The twins said they spend more money on the quality of the product because it is something they strongly believe in and customers can notice the difference.

The sisters do not see other boba tea shops as competition because they want to encourage and uplift other small business owners.

They already have started partnering with Poke Burri next door, which opened in February.

“They tell their customers to come next door and get a boba and hangout, and we also always encourage our customers to go and check out their poke,” the twins said. “We just want to help each other out.”

LEAVING A LEGACY

Now that the twins’ parents are gone, the importance of family and legacy is cardinal. 

“The business was something that we know our family could really enjoy,” Dewrell said. “The family is growing even more, and we wanted something that would outlast us to leave a legacy. We love that this dream helps us connect even more with our Filipino background, and we want to have the joy of sharing that with others.”

Although Dewrell and Perlas sometimes fight, as all siblings do, they love even harder. They have always been close and stayed together. 

In the future, the twins hope to continue to implement more Filipino-inspired items, as well as grow the business enough to become a full-time gig. 

The sisters have dreams of using the shop space to host events in the future, such as tea time, karaoke, small gatherings and celebrations. 

Dewrell and Perlas already have started discussing the possibility of a second shop in areas such as Clermont or in the airport. 

They hope to one day have multiple locations and franchise the business. 

Photo by Annabelle Sikes