Samoa’s new craze: Freak Shakes

By Vatapuia Maiava 19 August 2016, 12:00AM

Are you a sweet, chocolate or a savory lover?

Don’t worry, there is no wrong answer when it comes to Samoa’s new craze; the freak shakes.

The guilty pleasure in a cup will not disappoint and the crazy looking milkshake (using only homemade ingredients) will not only bring them boys to the yard.

If you are one of the many people drooling behind the computer screens over the past weeks Facebook freak shake post trend then why not stop at Tui’s Café located at the U.N.D.P. building to check if it tastes as good as it looks.

Served exclusively at Tui’s café, the freak shake comes in five different flavors; the most popular Ferrero freak shake which has a hazelnut flavor to it, the chocolate brownie freak shake for the chocolate lovers, salted caramel freak shake, strawberry cheesecake freak shake and the new passion fruit meringue kiss shake.

But café owner Tuitogamatoe Hicks accepts no credit for the unique idea.

“I think in the culinary world or maybe just café’s in general nothing is new or unique,” she told the Samoa Observer.

“Maybe its unique here in Samoa but we pretty much recreated something that we’ve had before; I travel to Melbourne a lot and while I was there last year I discovered these freak shakes at a local café.

“It was interesting because it was pretty much a dessert in one shake and just the novelty of it I found very amusing.

“People were lining up at this café and some for hours at a time to get a table because of the shakes and I wondered how it would fare in Samoa; it wasn’t until almost a year later when we started.”

For Ms. Hicks, the popularity of the shakes was unexpected.

“When we started it we didn’t realize it would be popular,” she said.

“Not just with the youth but its popular with a lot of older people as well which is great; we have a big range of customers coming here and that’s pretty much it.

“It’s not our idea but our shakes are unique to the ones we’ve had before; we create our own but the concept was from another café.”

But how popular are the freak shakes?

“We go through a lot of ice cream that’s for sure,” Ms. Hicks replied.

“We have some new machines on the way because we’ve been using our smoothie blenders but we have some new milkshake machines coming in so it doesn’t interfere with our smoothie customers.

“It’s been quite popular and we didn’t expect it, it’s been quite amazing and I’m glad we could bring something new seeing that there’s so many café’s now in Samoa.

“I want to create a better experience for everyone; our food has evolved, our café has evolved and now our drinks have evolved.”

And if those flavors don’t already appeal to you then don’t fret; the café owner assures everyone that there will be a new flavor every week and the popular ones will be left on the menu.

There always be a variety of at least five different flavors at one time; but at the moment, the chocolate lovers outnumber the rest.

But here’s the best part, they are affordable!

“We decided that we would keep it to one price,” Ms. Hicks said.

“With something like this you could expect to pay $25-$40 overseas but we felt that was a bit too much to ask for here in Samoa because we want all our different customers to enjoy it.

“Based on that we decided that all the freak shakes will be $15 regardless of the flavor; if you get it with fries which is our special it’s $18 so you save a couple of dollars.”

But at the end of the day the freak shakes is all about having fun… if that wasn’t already obvious.

“We’re pretty much in this to have fun and to create things,” Ms. Hicks said.

“We’re enjoying this and I hope it reflects on our work.”

By Vatapuia Maiava 19 August 2016, 12:00AM
Samoa Observer

Upgrade to Premium

Subscribe to
Samoa Observer Online

Enjoy unlimited access to all our articles on any device + free trial to e-Edition. You can cancel anytime.

>