Trader Joe’s Ube Tea Cookies – Where’s the Ube?
Oh, Trader Joe’s… I can never seem to keep up with your new items, and it’s harder when they aren’t as readily available right away at my local TJ’s. Their ube tea cookies were available, and I just had to grab a box!
Started With TJ’s Ube Ice Cream
I mentioned how delicious TJ’s ube ice cream was when I reviewed their Souther Peach Crisp ice cream. The ube ice cream was very smooth with a small amount of bits in there. So delicious, not too yam-my. One person that bagged our groceries one day mentioned the ube ice cream tasted like marshmallows. I loved their ube ice cream since they first had it over a year ago that I had to pick up a box of their new ube tea cookies!
Purple and Packaging
I adore how colorful TJ’s ube items are! The font is a fun bubbly font, and the packaging is purple throughout. Their ube pancake mix looks similar from the photos I’ve seen, but I have not seen that product at my local TJ’s, so I was glad to see more ube ice cream and their ube tea cookies. The picture on the packaging is purple too, so I expected delicious little purple cookies with a minimal amount of powdered sugar.
Not so Purple
OK, so the actual cookies do not look quite like the photo. The cookies are more white than purple, and it looks as if there’s quite a bit of powdered sugar on them. The cookies’ interiors are more of a light reddish purple than actual purple compared to the box and to the ube ice cream.
The Nutrition!
Cookies can be addictive, and one serving turns into 2, then turns into 5, etc. One TJ’s ube tea cookies serving contains 5 of these ube tea cookies. That’s not very much considering the size, but yet again, it’s difficult to have a very generous cookie serving. 5 ube tea cookies contain 130 Calories and the macros are 5g fat, 19g carbs, and less than 1g protein. Sugar!! Yeah, not so great here. Their ube ice cream container contains 3 servings, and each serving contains 200 Calories with 11g fat, 22g carbs, and 4g protein. Some protein and some calcium in there and I immediately think the ice cream is “healthier” than the cookies.
Taste / Ube on Ube
Why not… put the 2 together. OK, that wasn’t the best idea since the cookies don’t hold the ice cream too well, but the cookies would be a good topping for the ice cream. There’s ube flavor in the ice cream, but it’s extremely subtle in the tea cookies. My 2 kids enjoyed the cookies more than I did because they said it didn’t really taste like ube and there was a good amount of powdered sugar. Texture was pretty good, as expected.
Comparison / Final Comments
There’s an “actual size” image on the box of the box, and I just had to compare! The look compared to the picture is different, but the size is rather accurate. Not too bad for around $4 a box, but these aren’t my thing. I’d buy their ube ice cream over and over again, but not so much these ube tea cookies. I would pick up another box if the kids specifically request another box though. The ube flavor wasn’t really strong (or at all) in these cookies and there was just so much powdered sugar (not as much as TJ’s stollen), which was a slight turnoff.
