Gong Cha

This Gong Cha location is very small. There is no seating room, just enough standing room to fit 3 customers. The service is quick and I like the milk tea and boba here. I ordered the oolong milk tea and I was a fan of it. I could taste the oolong and the quality of tea is very good.

Just as good as the San Jose location. Consistency between franchises, woo hoo! Don’t know what else to say that others haven’t already said, except… get on the rewards program to drink your way to a free boba. Earl Grey Milk Tea with 3J, 0% sugar, 25% ice is my tried and trusted order of choice, ALWAYS. Why 0% sugar? Because the boba itself is usually sitting in syrup, so you really don’t need the added sugar, trust me!

Encountering Gong Cha was pure happenstance. You see, the previous night we had late night tea and dessert at Cha An in the East Village. I had posted some photos of our oolong tea (served gongfu style) on Instagram. I had tagged my post as «gongcha» instead of «gongfucha», and when I was looking through related tag posts, there were all these photos of boba tea. Whoops, wrong hash tag, I thought, and edited my post. The next day, we were killing time waiting for our bus and went to check out a coffee shop that had favorable reviews. Lo and behold, there was Gong Cha, across the street! So naturally, we had to go in and sample their offerings.
The store and ordering system is similar to Kung Fu Tea, with a selection of signature drinks and customization (hot or cold, no/​less/​more ice, amount of sweetener, bubbles or no bubbles, etc). I ordered the QQ Passion Green Tea ($ 4.25) and my boyfriend ordered the Oolong Tea ($ 3), served hot. I was impressed with my drink, as it was refreshing with the additional bonus of the coconut jellies that reminded me of my childhood. It held up well on the bus ride back to DC. My boyfriend thought his tea was just «okay». It wasn’t a complex-​tasting oolong and we weren’t expecting anything fancy. It was was almost room temperature and a light watered down roasted flavor. Normally he is strictly a black milk tea guy but we had already shared a pot of ginger milk tea and he felt he had reached his dairy quota for the day.
Overall, a good experience. Next time I will try their famous milk foam!

Have been here few times more after the last bubleless incident and the tea is amazing as always. Service seemed to be a little more professional this time around and my tea was on point.
Gong Cha continues to be my favorite bubble tea place in midtown

Milk foam, milk foam — how do I describe thee? Very dairy, kinda salty, heavy frothy, something I maybe like? Or will grow to like?
Sista and I made the mistake of getting extra foam (with the Unilocal check-​in) in our small size milk foam boba drinks and ended up with an extremely rich milk froth drink after 10 minutes. (And were not able to enjoy the last of our basil seeds.) Would not recommend extra foam in a small.
But overall clean location, sweet workers, customize-​able ice and sweetness levels, and enjoyable drinks.

This milk tea place was very small with limited seating. We were lucky since there was a table left. The staff here were nice and friendly. The menu had a lot of choices, but I knew what I wanted. I ordered a large Earl Grey Milk Tea with 3J ($ 4.75) with normal sugar (mine came at 50%) and ice levels. The drink was ready within a few minutes of ordering. I thought it tasted good and just like the locations in California. I would recommend the Earl Grey Milk Tea with 3J because it had pearls, pudding and herbal jelly which all tasted good to me. Come check this place out if you’re craving some milk tea and you’re in the area!

I’ll start off this review by saying I’ve been to a gong cha in Hong Kong and this just does not compare.
Maybe it’s the fact that I had such a great experience there that this location really let me down. I thought it was overly sweet and there wasn’t enough tea flavor.
Overall the store was clean and customer service was ok. I might come back again if I hear good things from my friends about the tea content of their drinks.

Always prefer customized ice and sugar level drinks! I always go with 30% sugar and less ice, to get to taste the drink itself better. Their bubbles milk tea is ok, I believe it is mixed with powder milk, it doesn’t give you much of the intensity. That says, the fresh milk is way better.
Love their signature Milk Form Green Tea. It is served with green tea at the bottom plus a top layer of milk froth. The way to have it is first to have a sip of milk froth, and then with the straw, get a the taste of green tea. Then mix the green tea and milk froth well and try it together.
This way helps layer up and intensify the taste.
The milk forth is a little salty and creamy heavy, but the creamy taste gets slowly fade out when you are trying the green tea itself. It brings up the fresh and light taste of the tea, and makes it a little sweeter.
Definitely recommend to try it out doesn’t matter if you are a tea lover or not.
–S

Gong Cha is my favorite place for bubble tea in Manhattan! Service is friendly and super speedy at this location. The tea here tastes like it’s actually brewed and doesn’t have the artificial syrup flavor. I appreciate that you can choose your sugar level and ice level here since I tend to forget to ask for less sugar and have to drink my diabetes in a cup.
My go-​to drink here is the ICED WINTERMELON OOLONG with AI-​YU JELLY. The first time I tried ai-​yu jelly was at Gong Cha and haven’t been able to find it at any other tea places since. It’s a jelly made from the gel from a certain type of fig seeds and has an extremely subtle flavor. It goes well with the wintermelon oolong, which tastes similar to honey oolong. Check this place out the next time you need wifi or a refreshing iced tea!

Maybe I’ve been spoiled by Boba in Taiwan and LA, but I was not impressed by this place.
I ordered the regular boba tea with egg custard and grass jelly, but I don’t think I actually had grass jelly in mine. The boba was the most problematic. My mom makes boba a lot, and the center is supposed to be soft. When it’s overboiled, the center hardens. This was the case here, unfortunately. The egg custard was tasteless.
The price is quite steep too for what you get. My drink was over $ 5.

Had lunch down the street and had a hankering for milk tea. I had to get some work done so I figured this was a good spot.
I ordered the milk foam oolong tea. All of the beverages with milk foam are made with whole milk and cannot be customized to a different milk base. I did 30% sweetness and got the beverage hot.
The teas range in price from about $ 3-​$ 5. You choose your size, sugar level, ice level, and any additional toppings you want ($ 0.50 per topping)
Ambiance:
All the tables and seats I tried to sit in had sticky stuff everywhere, from what I presume to be spillage from the teas. It was freezing cold inside and it was below 40 degrees outside. I swear the AC was on? Also there’s no bathroom.
Service:
There were only 2 or 3 guys working. The staff was really nice and helpful. Very friendly.
Beverage:
The drink was terrible. The milk foam is super rich and creamy– but sickeningly so. Almost like a cream cheese gone wrong. It is also cold. My beverage was hot. I scooped out the thick layer of foam so that I could get to my actual drink. Almost half of my drink was foam. When I got to the tea, I found that my drink was really thin and flavorless. And it also wasn’t hot. I wanted to order my drink with soy milk (the only nondairy alternative they offer) but wanted to try the milk foam so I had to order it with regular whole milk.
Will not be back because this was one of the worst milk teas I’ve ever had. It was $ 4 for a regular size. For a half a cup of lukewarm bad tea. No thanks.
How in the world does this place have 4 stars???
Recap…
Pros: friendly helpful staff. Free wifi that works well. Decent seating with a couple of outlets.
Cons: overpriced tea that is watery tasting. Extremely limited to no flexibility with milk options. Lukewarm instead of hot tea. Sticky and dirty tables and chairs. Really cold inside. No bathroom for customers.

Gong cha is another tea shop chain that’s apparently known for their milk foam but it’s the only decent milk tea option in midtown! You can customize ice level and sugar levels here
Become loyal and you can download the stamps app, 9 drinks gets you 1 free.
—earl grey milk tea: way too creamy. You
—iced wintermelon tea with milk foam: not bad, slightly salty and sickening after too much though
NOTE: Free wifi and they take credit card

A colleague of mine stopped by here for an afternoon treat, and this place fulfilled all of our boba tea dreams! I LOVE the customization options of the drinks, and the friendly staff make this place amazing. I was so pleasantly surprised that this place existed in the midtown area, as it’s usually hard to find some quality places in the neighborhood.
They seamed to have an extensive menu that still covered the standard boba tea drinks (milk teas, flavored green teas, etc). My friend and I got the mango green tea, which had real pieces of mango in it. Both of us went with a 30% sweetener level with the «Light» amount of ice option. It was great that we could adjust the sweetness, since mango green tea is just naturally very sweet. We would have preferred it a bit colder, so will probably go with «Less» option of ice next time

Great customizable bubble tea — choose your flavor, ice & sugar level and toppings. Fast service and good quality ingredients. My current favorite is the QQ Passion Fruit Green Tea that comes with coconut jelly and tapioca pearls.

I’m biased toward Gong Cha. Love that you can customize sugar, ice, size, and toppings (boba +$.50). Good selection of flavors as well. Got a medium winter melon milk tea with boba, and a large mango tea for $ 9.53 total. Out within 5 min at 4:25 pm. Cool.

Was walking around and felt chilly and happened to pass by this spot, which must’ve opened in the 1.5 years I was out of town.
I usually make my own boba/​bubble tea at home since it’s places like this who can’t get their pearls the right texture that make me avoid getting it from stores. CoCo has by far been the more consistent places I’ve been to worldwide, but it’s far better tasting in Asia.
Onto Gong Cha: I ordered the regular milk tea with pearls, 30% sweet. Not sure exactly where I should start. These were the soggiest pearls I’ve ever had — an utter lack of the expected chewiness of normal boba. Chewy is defined to have SOME form of resistance when you bite down on something. These pearls can be bitten straight through with ease, while being über gooey-​feeling and sticking to your teeth even more.
At CoCo, 50% sweet is mainly tea-​flavored with some hint of sweetness, but I’m afraid of what 100% sweet at Gong Cha means, since the 30% sweet came out tasting like 90−100% sweet, plus the guy may have accidentally mixed my order with someone else’s, as I ended up getting my order way before the two people in front of me (not complaining if I’m getting speedy service, but prefer a quality product).
Finally, since I was getting the chills and had ordered the HOT milk tea w/​pearls, I expected something more than the lukewarm drink I ended up receiving. Obviously don’t try to burn my mouth/​tongue since I’m using a boba straw, but since you’re probably adding freezing cold milk, you need to start with hotter tea. And if you’re not adding milk and using a powder, or pre-​made mixture, even worse…
Either way, figured I’d give my two cents on this place as I am super picky about my boba being the most important part of a boba shop, and had to share my findings.
This rating is mainly for the crappiness of pearls — can’t say anything about the other drinks here.

Excellent, excellent bubble tea. I tried both the green tea mango and the mango yogurt. There’s real pieces of mango in both, extremely delicious. I preferred the yogurt one and it was just a little creamy without overdoing it. The bubbles were nice and soft. I recommend getting it with 80% less ice and only 30% sugar. It was definitely cold and sweet enough with these specifications. I’m sure it’s delicious with the milk foam too. This place might be some of the best bubble tea I’ve had. It’s going to be my new go to bubble tea place in the city!

Great bubble tea place! I like that you can adjust the sweetness level of your drink and you can taste the tea flavor, unlike some bubble tea I have had in the past that just taste like water down tea with sugar (I always order tea with milk + whatever flavoring I am in the mood for at the time). I will definitely be back again the next time I am in town!

This is my favorite bubble tea spot in the midtown area. I was so happy when I found out that they have a location near me! Although Coco’s is closer, I honestly prefer Gong Cha~
Their menu is extensive and I tend to either go for oolong milk tea or earl grey milk tea with tapioca. Unfortunately, many bubble tea places I go to do not have these options. They just have basic black milk tea. (No offence to black tea but I like to change it up a bit sometimes ya know?)
More bubble tea places have the option to adjust your ice and sugar levels and this place is no different. Bubble tea with less ice and 50 or 70% sugar is perfect to me! It really depends on how sweet I’d like it on a particular day.
The workers are friendly and they make the drinks very quickly. I remember stopping by during Halloween and one of the female co-​workers knew what my costume was. (If you were wondering… it was Young Black Jack. Yes, I’m a nerd. I know.) It was a simple gesture, but having someone compliment and recognize who I dressed up really made my night.
So if you have a craving for bubble tea and you’re in the area, definitely stop by! You won’t regret it.

Let me teach you how to order here.
First of all, light ice or no ice. You never need more than light ice unless you want to be drinking water later. Additionally, while I –guess– sugar level is up to taste, cranking it to max will rot your teeth out. But if that’s what you want… Last, always get a large. Go big or go home.
The sheer level of customization here makes it top-​tier, and the fact of the matter is, it’s really, really tasty. Sure, the idea of throwing pudding, jelly, and tapioca into tea might make the Earl of Grey spin in his grave, but life is too short to not have fun with your bubble tea. The whole menu is tasty, and working your way through its many options is a highly worthy journey.
A few other notes: they have a reward program through a third party app, but I haven’t personally enjoyed my experience with said app. Lost stamps, etc. On the upside, free milk foam when you check in on Unilocal!
P. S. they’re playing Good Charlotte and it’s like being a kid again; honestly I love this place.

Love the music, staff was super nice and helpful. Love to see the them dancing and enjoying their work. Good vibe! :)
Brought my African American friend here for her first bubble tea! And of course it has to be Gong Cha, they’re The original! I have been going to Gong Cha for 5 – 6 years since I was in Hong Kong!
Ordered the bubble milk tea with no sugar. It was still super good and sweet because the bubbles themselves had enough sugar in them.
My friend loved it. Congratulation Gong Cha, you got one more loyal customer!!!
Shout out to Amy M and Henry T! Fellow Unilocal elites working in the store. Hope you guys can join some elite events next time when you don’t have work:)

A very beautiful small place, u believe their bubble tea would be considered phenomenal if I didn’t decide to be adventurous this Friday.
I normally get regular bubble teas but decided to be different and get the lemon winter melon
Hoooomg. Never again lol it was a very minty sweet fruit and it was all over so it was impossible to avoid. Unfortunately I couldn’t take it so I threw it out but I’m sure the next time I get a taste in familiar with it’ll be great.

I wish this place opened by 42^nd and Lex to give Coco some competition. This is how bubble tea joints should be… Given its location, I’ve only tried their aiyu jelly because I can’t drink bubble milk tea after 7pm without being awake for ages. (I don’t have this issue with coffee or espresso.) Have any suggestions on non-​caffeinated drinks?
Also, make sure you download their app to work towards free drinks.

Personalized bubble tea!
I love that you can pick exactly how much of each component you want.
i got the QQ passionfruit green tea with coconut jelly and pearls.
Size: medium
light on the ice
50% sugar (and it was still plenty sweet)
I wish they had a strawberry flavor but I’m still a fan!

Dontcha want some Gong Cha?
Asked myself that darn question everyday I was in NYC. So I shrugged and gave in. I love boba like a fat kid… loves boba.
* GET — Anything on their menu. Their tea is top notch. Boba always consistent! Not too mushy, never uncooked. We had /​tried black milk tea, oolong milk tea, Jasmine green milk tea, boba, and grass jelly adds.
* YES — Friendly fast service
* YES — Small shop: few high-​top tables for seating inside, few bar seats aligning the window
* YES — Easy to find, just past the corner of Pret a Manger
* FYI — Accepts credit cards
* FYI — Opens 11am and closes 10pm most-​days

It took forever to find this location. LITERALLY. This location is on a busy, awkward block.[1] After walking for such a long time, I finally found it… I stood outside the door for a minute or so before entering, because I was in awe that I finally found it. Today was a long tiring day. Why did I decide to walk so far for some bubble tea? Sigh. I just wanted to treat myself to some tea. The cashier was polite and friendly.[2] This location is a bit slower than the 32^nd street location, but it’s okay. I ordered the Wintermelon with Fresh Milk, boba, milk foam and pudding! Yes, I went all in with those toppings. It took forever to get here, so I just wanted to. Plus, I always wanted to try the milk foam. However, adding the milk foam was… not such a good idea. The Wintermelon with Fresh Milk was delicious. The boba and pudding were perfect. The milk foam tastes like… not good?[3] ehh after paying for the extra topping, I finished my tea off. Even though it was hard to find this location, I plan to come back for the buy 9, get 1 free. This location also has snacks.
[1] The location is on a busy block, but not really on the main part of 5^th ave. It took about a month to actually get over here.
[2] One thing I can say is that Gongcha employees are really nice and friendly.
[3] The milk foam was WAY too sweet. Like syrupy foam? whatever that is. I didn’t like it. It didn’t taste milky. If my tea was unsweeten maybe I wouldn’t have minded, but since my drink was already filled with sugar, it was way too much sugar on top of sugar.

This place is so yummy! I’ve had most of the major tea places as a Californian (85 degrees, 7 leaves, TenRen, Tastea, Class 302, Half and Half etc.) but I’ve never come across Gong Cha.
It’s a cute little shop that’s well-​kept and I really appreciated it because they got the sugar level JUST RIGHT. I hate overly sweetened tea or with that artificial powder taste. I got the Oolong tea with Milk Foam which was light, fresh and every so slightly creamy. It was a savior after walking around in the heat and unforgiving humid subway.
The boba was perfectly chewy as well. I hope they come to SoCal!

They have this cool way to order:
1. Choose your drink
2. Choose your size
3. Choose your topping (!)
4. Choose your sugar level
5. Choose your ice level
This place rocks! My daughter got the caramel milk tea with pearls and I got the brown sugar ginger tea with pearls. When they came I was sure I was going to be disappointed because she always orders better than me. I tasted mine and FINALLY, I won! Woohoo! So happy there are more locations!

One thing I love about Gong Cha is their consistency across locations, whether they’re in Hong Kong, California, or New York. I’ve never been disappointed by Gong Cha’s quality, and I’m glad this location continues the trend.
Walked in and was greeted by some very bubbly cashiers. The store is clean, well lit, and nicely decorated. I love it when a store has big, blown-​up pictures of their food or drink… it makes it easier to see exactly what you want!
I ordered the Earl Grey milk foam tea at 30% sugar and checked in on Unilocal for free extra milk foam (my favorite part). Customizable sugar and ice levels are part of Gong Cha’s appeal. Like always, my drink was the right amount of sweetness (read: not too sweet) and perfect with the thick, creamy, and slightly salty milk foam.
I was especially happy that an employee here let me use my stamp cards from California, even though they’ve switched over to a mobile app for rewards now. He didn’t have to, but I really appreciated the gesture. That’s how to make a loyal customer!
Overall: SO, so glad this chain is on the East Coast, because so far, the rest of the boba (or I guess you guys call it bubble tea, huh?) I’ve tried has been lacking. Maybe the best option in Manhattan right now. Definitely returning when I need my milk tea fix!

One of the leading bubble tea in Asia is now here in the USA and I am so happy that it’s here in nyc!
The bubbles are so chewy and never hard, my favorite is the all time classic earl grey milk tea. I will make sure to go back and order more, this with yummy foam.

This Gong Cha opened last Fall and is a popular hot spot for bubble tea enthusiasts in the Midtown area. This store (in addition to the Koreantown and Chinatown stores) offers the famous «milk foam» topping which is basically a topping comparable to a salted caramel made with creamer and butter.
There are also an abundance of seats so you can just sit and chill while you sip on your tea. The staff here are also very nice and are willing to give you samples of you ask!

Rude kids behind the counter… Fully invested in their conversations rather than making drinks when so many people are waiting for orders.
This is midtown we are working people chop chop with the drinks.
Ultimately when the drinks come out they are good, so if you want authentic bubble tea here’s a spot in midtown but if service remains like what it is I’ll be sure to frequent the CoCo that is suppose to be opening up soon.