Coconut shakes — some say it’s the new bubble tea. Like their predecessors, they draw large crowds, pandemic or not. Just last week, we endured a 20-people-deep, 30-minute queue to get our cup at popular chain store, Mr Coconut. All in the name of research. And when something is this sought-after, you can bet a humbler version will soon pop up in the heartlands, offering a similar rendition at cheaper prices. Enter three-week-old Colico (abbreviated from “Coconut Delicious Company”) in Toa Payoh Lor 8 Hawker Centre.

Its coconut shake, priced from $3.50, is one of the cheapest around – most of its competitors, including major players like the 20-outlet Mr Coconut, CocoCane and Coconutnut, are peddling the frosty drink at $4.40, and can cost up to $5.50 for the smallest size.

In case you have no clue what a coconut shake is, here’s a quick lesson: it’s coconut pulp, juice and coconut ice cream, blended together till thick and slushy.

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The stall is opened by a mother-and-daughter duo: 57-year-old Lim Chin Mui runs the day-to-day operations, flitting between the stall and another one in the market (read more below), while her daughter Carol Ang, 28, works on the recipes and ensures quality control.

Carol still holds a day job “in the field of accounting” (she declines to reveal more) despite being bitten by the F&B bug – a bug that’s run in the family since 1974, when her late grandfather first opened a popiah stall in Toa Payoh Lor 8 Hawker Centre.

The stall, which is named Hai Ji and currently occupies #01-03, has since been passed down to the second generation, who’ve expanded the menu to include rojak. “We’ve always tried to cook whatever the hawker centre’s missing,” says Chin Mui in Mandarin. “We can’t stay stuck in our ways – must be flexible.”

Eventually, she took over an additional unit, #01-60, when its lease expired. “I used to sell something else there, but one day my daughter suggested ‘Why not coconut shakes?’ And I thought it was a good idea because the weather’s always so hot!” she says with a laugh.

Before Carol could begin selling her creations though, she needed to come up with the recipes. She had no prior F&B experience to speak of, save some odd jobs as a banquet waitress. Her family members, including her coconut water-loving father and sister, became her “guinea pigs” over the course of a year.

During her testing phase, she found that young botak Thai coconuts were “more fragrant and sweeter” than Malaysian ones. Thereafter, she invested a sum “close to five figures” for equipment and opened up Colico. Her mother blends the shakes on weekdays, taking turns with hired help, until her daughter arrives after her office job. “It definitely takes discipline to go down every day, especially when you’re tired,” says Carol.

Ultimately, she hopes to make “coconut drinks as normal in a hawker centre as sugar cane juice is,” with a chance that she might eventually become a full-time hawker to focus on the stall.

Business, even after the Phase 2 HA measures were announced, hasn’t slowed down – especially since the weather’s been just as hot, says Carol. “We’ve had a lot of cyclists passing by and getting our drinks to cool down.”

As a mature estate, Toa Payoh Lor 8 Hawker Centre caters to an older demographic. How have hipster coconut shakes fared among such a crowd? “Surprisingly, we get a lot of old folks buying shakes for their grandkids – though they prefer whole coconuts if they’re buying for themselves,” she says.

Whole Thai coconuts are cracked open daily, their flesh and juice extracted in preparation for service. Once an order is in, these ingredients are added into a blender along with a scoop of (supplier-bought) coconut ice cream, where they get blitzed with ice.

You’ve also got the option of skipping the ice cream blend in favour of just adding ice cubes for a more watery “iced shaken” version. They also offer the hawker centre stalwart, freshly-squeezed sugarcane juice, pimped up with coconut pulp and juice. Additional toppings like jelly or coconut ice cream – and no, there isn’t any boba – are also available.

Like Mr Coconut, Colico’s smallest size weighs in at 500ml, and costs an additional dollar to upsize to 700ml.

Colico’s rendition is refreshing and enjoyable – it tastes, well, like coconut, not just sugar. There’s a moderate amount of lemak-ness and a velvety mouthfeel thanks to the coconut ice cream, though it isn’t as rich and creamy as Mr Coconut’s. That’s probably deliberate on their part – older residents in the area might be put off by an overly cloying shake. In any case, you can always splash out for an additional scoop of ice cream (70 cents).

We opted to add some tropical jelly (50 cents), though that turned out to be a mistake. It has a sickly-sweet artificial taste that does nothing for the already yummy shake.

Cookies-and-cream is a combo that usually works – but not in this case. The chocolatey flavour of the Oreo cookie shines through, while lending the drink some texture; but it’s a little overwhelming if you’re looking to enjoy the aroma of pure coconut.

Lotus biscoff cookies, prized for their distinct caramelly nuttiness, disappears into this drink. They might be too expensive to add liberally compared to the wallet-friendly Oreos. It works well if you’re looking for a touch of texture and a tease of caramel, but not much more.

Another intriguing flavour combination Carol offers is coconut and matcha. It’s quite tasty, with a bittersweet tinge, though we’d only recommend it for fans of matcha – it ends up more like a matcha shake with coconut than the other way round.

This is surprisingly well-balanced and excellent. Think lemak coconut slushy punctuated with light floral notes. It’s a mellow and perfumed nostalgia bomb for anyone who’s grown up drinking chrysanthemum tea packet drinks at family events (us included). Carol says she included this version blended with powdered chrysanthemum as her parents “used to brew chrysanthemum tea at home all the time”.

A copy of Cococane’s signature drink. Both cost $3 a pop, and both use only the two ingredients it’s named for to sweeten the beverage. It tastes... fine. The bits of coconut pulp add some nice bite to the freshly-squeezed sugar cane juice, but there’s nothing particularly special about it. We’d rather fork out an extra 50 cents for a coconut shake you can’t normally find at such prices.

The coconut shakes here, while a little lighter and less creamy than their famous rivals, are nonetheless quite tasty and refreshing. A good heartland option, especially since prices are about a dollar less per cup than their snazzier counterparts. And there’s no queue here — for now. Pro tip: order the Original Coconut Shake or the unique Coconut Chrysanthemum Shake.

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Photos: Alvin Teo