Tea Bar Starry

First time here and we loved it. They were a bit understaffed, but the girl was working really hard. Fried rice was good and we ordered the shaved ice was really good.

Tea bar has been one of my favorite tea/​boba spots for years. Simply because they use real fruits for a lot of their tea drinks. The drinks do come out a bit too sweet so always ask for ¼ or ½ sugar! My favorite drink here would have to be the orange green tea or honey lemon green tea with aloe Vera. They aren’t cheap with giving aloe here, unlike tenren, which gives you literally 2 small pieces only.
You can sign up for 5 star rewards program, after about 250 points. You can exchange it for a tea bar VIP card, which gives you 15% off everything you order and 20% off during your birthday month!

Valentine’s Day special! Buy any drink and get a strawberry thick toast for the price of $ 2.14!

Came here to study on late Thursday night. We were seated at a table and I didn’t realize that there were no outlets. We asked the worker and she said there’s a line for a booth. Good thing I had half of my battery life left. I got a hot barley MT and it was interesting. The MT was pretty good but I ended up with a pile of barley at the end. I usually get the student discount boba MT but it’s only for Togo. Overall, good place to study if it’s not too loud or packed

Super friendly and welcoming! Thanks for the suggestions and your help deciding which drink to order, Bobby! Craved a strawberry or peach slushie and the milk tea. Since I couldn’t decide I ventured to try their strawberry peach milk slushy. Super creamy and a perfect pinky sweetness. I’ll be sure to remember this tea spot when I am back in the area.

Not a bad place to get drinks if you’re craving Taiwanese tea or snacks. They have sweets and toasts too. We came here recently and enjoyed our tea. The service was also very friendly and nice. I would say we would come back again despite our previous experiences.

Was looking for something to eat last at night, called this place to ask if they’re still open and all. So we go to find out that the kitchen was closed. The girl said we called 2 minutes before the kitchen closed so technically they were still serving food. Didn’t appreciate her rudeness. Definitely didn’t mention that the kitchen closes at a different time, that would have been helpful. Not surprised, this place is ran by some kids.

Located right next to Din Tai Fung, and across from JJ Bakery, I never even knew of this place until my free birthday drink, lol!
I popped in around 1:15pm, and the place was semi dead with two other patrons. It didn’t start getting busy until after 2:30pm. I was greeted and seated immediately. The female server was a sweet girl. Got my order in right away.
I got the free Iced Milk Rose Tea and purchased the Rock n Toast (Honey Brick Toast with Vanilla Ice Cream, Nutella spread, marshmallows, chocolate chips and two chocolate straws). Total cost for brick toast only was $ 5.94.
The Milk Rose Tea was sweet (should’ve asked for semi sweet instead). It was cool, freshing, and had a nice rose tea aroma to it. The only thing that annoyed me was the rose petals on the bottom. It should have been strained or just one rosebud placed on top. I was spitting out about 5 petals toward the end.
The Rock n Toast: Meh, I’ve had better. The one here was thin. It wasn’t the big thick ones I’m accustomed to seeing. I like Caffebene or Factory Tea Bar better. The vanilla ice cream, chocolaty toppings and Nutella spread was generous, but that’s about it. I would pass on the brick toasts here. It’s not worth it for $ 5.94 (grand total).
Service: The female server was a sweetie. Greeted me with every sentence ending in «Ma’am.» Nice sign of respect. Though, it amused me she couldn’t answer a simple wifi question. I only needed to know what the wifi password was, and she gave me this whole hoopla instructions about going through their Facebook page, and then going to the settings and logging onto safari to get there. Good grief — I just went to my wifi settings and under Tea Bar Guest — there’s no password required! I may be a couple years older, but I know how to work wifi. All I needed was the password, not the iPhone wifi settings. You’re talking to an Android user, girl, lol!
They still had their infamous upside down Christmas tree up, which was cool. The place is clean and spacious. Nice place to study or catchup with friends. Also, their Five Star Membership machine was down, and so I wasn’t able to redeem my points visited today.
Overall, a nice place to check out, but after today, not worth another comeback.

I’ve been coming here for about a year. I like to order my drink and chill here. On this one not-​so-​busy day, I was «asked» to leave to make the booth available. Like, is there an order minimum? Do I have to spend more money not to be kicked out? I would understand if I were asked on a busy day, but I found this to be very disloyal and disrespectful. Good bye, Starry.

This place is great! U can study there, and the crystal boba is their specialty and it’s better than typical boba. Only complaint is if your order is under $ 10 and u try to pay with card, they will charge you about $ 0.35 extra.

TLDR: The boba. The rudeness. The ice.
Honestly, we came here because we had to wait an hour and a half for din tai fung which is next door. We wanted to just kill some time… but made the mistake of coming here before checking Unilocal reviews.
We ordered a peach green tea by itself and a milk tea with boba. We paid and the cashier said «it’ll be out in 10 minutes.» Wait, what? 10 minutes for 2 drinks? Okay…
15 minutes or so later, out came the peach green tea (which was way too sweet anyway). But where was the regular milk tea with boba? I waited at the pickup side and watched drink after drink roll out. But not the milk tea.
The cashier finally approached me and asked what I was waiting for. Milk tea with boba I told her. She looked confused and then said «oh, we’re out of regular boba. Do you want crystal boba?»
Crystal boba? What in the world is that??? «It’s sweeter and chewier than regular boba, house special.» Um, no thanks.
After about 10 more minutes, the milk tea finally came out. Plain milk tea. That you pour straight from the already made container of milk tea. Almost 30 minutes. For plain milk tea. Plain.
My parents were not happy. We paid more for boba so they should at least offer us the money difference shouldn’t they? Not offering that means we’re gonna ask for the money we’re supposed to get. Dad went to get the money back. The manager or owner who was making the drinks was telling us that we had ordered it without boba. Excuse me. What? No we did, and YOU had told us you didn’t have boba. Finally, she rolled her eyes and slapped the money into his hand. Seriously? Rude AF.
Also worth noting there was a table I overheard that had been waiting over 20 minutes for their food that they had already paid for. The cashier went to check only to find that the order wasn’t even put in. Several other tables were overheard complaining that their food hadn’t come.
Subpar drinks? Terrible service? Order confusions? No thanks.
The best part of the drink? The crushed ice.

Great service! I always get greeted right when I walk in by very friendly workers.
This is my boyfriends go-​to place for his taro smoothies since they use real taro. I love the teas here too because they have so many flavors and use real ingredients. No powders! There’s a wide variety of toppings for your drinks as well.
I’ve been getting the hot desserts recently. The red bean soup with rice ball & hot grass jelly are both super good. Perfect light dessert on a cold night!
Check in on Unilocal for 10% off a drink.

WOW… a boba flavor I have never before had and am totally in love with… Mandarin Orange… Absolutely beyond delicious. It even had a Tangelo cut up and tossed in with the ice chips and a frothy mix…
So this place is easy to find… its next door to Din Tai Fung… We also got a dessert here and it was tasty but almost no substance… essentially it was taro mini baby boba and taro flavored milk heated up. It was ok…
I have had a regular boba here before and it was nothing special. Just another boba shop… but this new flavor to me was delicious and I like that it came in a glass cup… definitely a rarity for a boba shop and thus a nice thing.
Overall the service was friendly but a bit slow. It would have been nice to have been able to have someone else on staff to help service the tables… but when we got there… they only had one guy working the tables… maybe they had another who was on break or something but later on a second dude showed up…
None the less I would suggest checking this place out for dessert or a drink after eating at DTF…

What’s not to love about refreshing bubble drinks? This place did not disappoint. My friend and I were seated right away and the place was very spacious. I ordered the frosted earl grey tea with mini-​boba. This was my first time having mini-​boba (there are no establishments in Chicago that offer this option! Ugh) and it was perfectly chewy and not too sweet. I love the fact that you can order the tea with less sugar (I ordered it with 25%) which let the smoothness of the tea shine through. The tea was topped off with whipped cream, which I chose not to mix into my drink. My friend had a mint tea with mini boba and she loved hers.
If you ever can open a place in Chicago, please do! You’d have customers lined out the door all year round (even in the snow).

One of the few tea shops that carries my favorite drink: Wintermeon Tea with Small Boba!
This place consistently cooks their boba right. I don’t think I’ve ever had undercooked or overcooked boba here before. However, the boba here doesn’t have that brown sugar taste of Tea Station or Half and Half.
Some other drinks that are good:
Lemon Wintermelon Tea
Wintermelon Green Tea
Orange Green Tea
Honey Green Tea
I prefer 75% sugar for the Wintermelon drinks, and 50% sugar for the green tea drinks.

Very friendly service and next to the popular Din Tai Fung– stopped here for boba while waiting for our table next door.
I think my favorite part of here was their air conditioning on the hot day. Unfortunately I wasn’t as pleased/​impressed by their boba and drinks, which I felt were just okay. I do like that they try to be as natural as possible, and use real fruits in their drinks instead of artificial flavors.
I do think that their Crystal boba in their drinks is pretty good though. Just everything else was so ordinary, especially given so much competition in the boba field (Half and Half, Tpumps, etc)

Starry Tea Bar is conveniently located next to Din Tai Fung. It’s also a short walk away from Sinbala and DreamLab. It’s been a while since I’ve been a regular here. I forgot how much I liked their tea.
The last few times I’ve visited, they ran out of crystal boba, which I think is more QQ than typical black boba. They say it’s cause they take it to the 626 night market and sell out for two weeks. Um, bro ya’ll need to get more inventory. They still have the $ 3 boba milk tea if you show your student ID. But so far, I’ve been digging their black sugar milk tea with crystal boba or crystal jelly.
One thing that has surprised me this time around is that their service is impeccable. I wish I remembered my servers’ names so I can give them praise. But man, are they on top of their stuff. One time I accidentally ordered crystal jelly instead of crystal boba but they offered to add in boba for me gratis. But even when they aren’t correcting my orders, I feel so welcome here.
Two caveats:
— They consistently run out of crystal boba.
— Their drinks are pretty expensive here.

Tea Bar Starry is perfect for studying or grabbing a drink with friends. This place has really exquisite drinks, including the Watermelon Green Tea, Mixed Fruit Green Tea, and Rose Grapefruit Green Tea! Most of their drinks have a strong tea flavor, which is in my favor because I am a huge fan of tea.
Tea Bar Starry is also well-​known for their usage of fresh fruits in teas. I’m so glad Tea Bar uses fresh fruits because most drink places around only use syrup (smh). Anyway, Tea Bar’s fruity drinks are always a balanced blend of fruit and tea flavor.
As for their food, the dishes are nothing out of the ordinary. The minced pork rice is nothing you can’t get from Quickly or Tapioca Express. Their desserts are also mediocre. Last time I came here, I ordered the Condensed Milk Brick Toast, and it was literally condensed milk poured on toasted bread. I could’ve made it myself. Anyway, if you want to be smart about your purchases, only get the drinks!

My cousin joked saying I was checking in so I could review this place for later. I told her I was too lazy to do reviews, but eh, now I’m in the mood for it. LOL.
Tea Bar Starry is located in the corner of the plaza right next to Din Tai Fung. The inside of this place is a pretty decent size with multiple chairs and tables to sit at. I wasn’t gonna get anything at first, but how can you really turn down trying a milk tea place that you’ve never been to yet? Yeah, thought so.
Their menu is extensive. There are different types of drinks and then different flavors. It takes a while to look through and to be honest, I eventually gave up and just ordered an earl grey milk tea with boba. I didn’t know they have crystal boba, though! I should’ve checked out their chalk board first that said all their toppings. I didn’t so I just got their regular boba. Which was still a good consistency so I’m not totally complaining.
I got the large size for the Earl grey milk tea and I’m not sure how much it was cos my cousin-​in-​law beat me to paying, but the drink itself was pretty good. And I was quite impressed with how sturdy their cups were.
Overall, would I come back? Yeah, if I was in the area then I’ll probably consider it.