Tea Station

A bit on the pricy side for dessert/​type drinks, but I thought their barley milk tea was very good, with hints of oatmeal (If you like that). The only downside (reason why I’m not giving them 5 stars) is due to how pricey everything is. Otherwise, I’m definitely a fan.

I was unimpressed. It seems like it would be hard to go wrong with matcha ice cream milk tea. The drink came out the color of Mt. Dew except creamy. It was bitter and left a horrible after taste. I can only imagine they used a super low quality matcha because I’ve never had anything matcha that was that bad. At least the guy who corrected my drink was nice. I ordered it with boba, they forgot to add it (which happens, its fine) but the manager gave me an eye roll and sigh that was unprofessional. Would not recommend.

Date of visit: 1÷20÷2016
The best part about Tea Station is the fact that you can adjust the sweetness level in any drink — even the snow ice drinks (I got ¾ sweetness). The worst part about Tea Station is the really slow service, but the staff is super friendly, which makes this not so bad.
Tea Station is a little pricier than most other boba places in San Diego, but I feel like they have the best boba available. I love the sweetness adjustments and I like that my boba is always perfectly prepared no matter what drink I get. Note that the boba does harden in snow ice drinks.
Scotty and I decided to have a late night meet up after I was working late and opted for Tea Station since they also have a pretty good menu. I really like their crispy chicken and fried tofu here. The tofu could use some spicy powder as well, but the dipping sauce that came with the dish was pretty good.
Scotty also ordered some fried taro balls, but they never came out. By the time we had finished our chicken and tofu, we asked about them, and they only had a partial order available. This was okay, but just a little annoying. It was also really hard to get the server’s attention since we sat at a table far away from their standing location. I did notice that they would stop periodically at other tables, but kind of ignored ours. It might have just been selective perception though.
Overall, this visit to Tea Station was not that great, but I can always depend on them for great boba. I’ll probably just get take out next time, which is what we usually do.

I arrived at 510p and was immediately greeted, shown to a seat and provided a menu! The customer service and speed has improved!
As usual, the food is one of kind, top quality!
Whatever was done to improve the attentiveness of the a staff, well done!

I discovered this place as a student, like most others, and it’s still one of the best boba places in SD. I generally get their hot milk tea. It’s not too sweet, and you can tell that most of their teas are made from real tea.
They are usually pretty busy here, though they have quite a few tables. Their drinks are NOT cheap… it’s worst than Starbucks, with a hot milk tea costing over $ 5. The drink is quality, but I don’t know if I can justify spending that much on a sugary beverage.

For boba in Mira Mesa, this place is the best. Most of the milk teas actually have tea in it, instead of just the powders. I always get my milk tea to go, with the exception of my most recent visit. You would think that –since I am a return customer here that it is odd that I come back, despite my 3 star rating. Let me explain.
I love boba and I love tea. I love it so much that I learned to make it at home. I have been to 90% of the boba shops in San Diego and North County. Clairemont is +hands down+ the place to go for good eats & better boba. I try to keep it local so the fact is that this place is the best LOCAL place for boba.
Yes, it is expensive and the customer can be lackluster, but I am giving an extra point bc this place saves me an additional 20 mins of driving.
Tea Station: you are like my secret abusive lover. You bitch slap me with your prices but in the end, you still make me feel so good.

10.16.15: Why is Tea Station so darn expensive? For the love of Tea, I just can’t deny this place. I love the fact that they use real tea leaf and not powder. I always loved tea station and I’m super glad that they have a location in San Diego. It feels like home. It’s not quite the same as they can’t make certain things. They can only make almond milk tea with black tea so don’t ask for green tea. They don’t like to deviate.
It never fails to see this place always busy and packed. The food is only so so, but you can bet their condense milk butter toast is freaking amazing!. Oh man so good. Come to think of it, you can’t go wrong with their snacks.
Every now and then I like to order their Taro Snow Ice, that has not failed us yet.
From this visit though they weren’t the best with their Shaved Ice. It was partially melted when received. But hey that’s just one time of failure. So hopefully when I return they don’t disappoint.
Yay Tea!

Craving boba on our trip in SD, I asked my friend what the best spot in San Diego was for tea. His friend told him, who told me that Tea Station was #1. Knowing I had to see for myself, we went there.
Now, the first thing we noticed was that the prices at Tea Station were a bit ridiculous. I’ve seen high end tea places, but $ 5 for drinks is a bit excessive. We wanted to leave, but the desire to test this Rose Milk Tea that was talked about was too strong.
Paid my $ 5.5 and was a bit disappointed at first by how small the cup was. It looked like half the size of a regular cup at most boba places. But the taste of the rose milk tea was pretty good! I usually don’t get this flavor often but I did enjoy the drink. However I can’t overlook how pricy this place is.
In sum, I guess if you’re craving boba in SD and want something good, this place is a good option if you don’t care about pricing. However, knowing now how expensive this place is, I probably won’t come back whenever Im in town.
Drink well and prosper,

I got the regular sized iced hazelnut milk tea ($ 4.75) with boba (+$ 0.40) and half sugar. The hazelnut was mild and you could slightly taste it, but the major downer was that you could definitely taste the artificial-​ness to it. Also, upon first sip, I immediately thought I should have gotten a quarter amount of the regular sugar. Maybe that would have brought out the hazelnut-​ty taste more. The boba was nice, kind of soft, but a little hard towards the center. The cup contained too much ice in it.

I like to start things off on a positive note, so… we were seated very quickly, the only plus of visiting this place.
Despite BOTH groups on either side of is ordering drinks, food, and getting their bills quickly, we never had anyone come to our table; we never got to order drinks or food.
We waited for 40 minutes just chatting and gave up when a waiter started to clean a table instead of paying attention to us.
Just save yourself the trouble and go to Tea n’ More right across the street. They’re nice in there.
Won’t be back.

Milk teas are pretty good here. I’ve had the green milk tea and the rose milk tea with boba. I recommend the ½ sugar, so that it’s not too sweet. You can definitely taste the rose in the milk tea. Boba was soft and chewy. I’d give the boba milk teas here a 4, but the prices are quite high so I have to dock a star. I just paid $ 7.29 for a large rose milk tea with boba today– a little bit ridiculous. I’ll be back, but maybe not too often.

So I got Curry Chicken and Fried Tofu here. I was surprised that the curry chicken came with so much food. The chicken was pretty good and so was the curry. I really liked ²⁄₃ trio plate that it came with. The miso soup was pretty bomb too. I was expecting the fried tofu to be a little bit more crispier and the sauce that it came with tasted really strong of soy sauce; almost like if you were drinking it out of the bottle. The boba tea was really good as well. I got Chrysanthemum Tea with boba and it wasn’t too sweet. I only asked for ½ sweet. The only ding i’d have to give tea station is the service. The service is super slow and it’s a bit difficult to get a hold of a waiter/​waitress.
Overall I like Tea Station; food quality is good and so is their boba.

Why you so expensive Tea Station?
I paid about $ 15 for just two drinks!!!
Ice Cream Matcha Green Tea
This drink is okay. I feel like anything that is «Matcha Green Tea» always tastes like powder mixed with milk.
Brown Sugar Milk Slush with Egg Pudding & Grass Jelly
This is literally always my GO-​TO drink when I go to tea station, and trust me, its not often… I like it mostly because of the egg pudding and grass jelly. Its delicious. The milk slush itself is basically an iced slushie with milk… Simple.
Honestly, I’d rather go to Tapioca Express because they have more variety of drinks and cheaper prices.

Came in here after lunch to get some drinks because it was hot outside. As we walk in, there’s a line for to go and the other side was for dine in. We decide to dine in and try the strawberry butter milk toast. I also order a large lychee green tea with lychee with half sugar. I should have went with ¼ sugar. Drink was sweet. Hubby gets the large passion fruit slush extra sweet. Hubby likes to get a sugar high! LOL!
We sat at the table while we waited for our drinks and toast. We watched the ladies make our drinks. I decided to get our drinks in to go containers rather than in glass mugs because I wanted to take it with me just in case I don’t finish my drink but I did anyway. My lychee green tea with lychee was good. However I just wish I ordered it with ¼ sugar rather than half. Drink was sweet. Our drinks came out quickly. However our toast took forever to be brought out. They were heating it up. After she heated it up, she spread some strawberry jam on it. My daughter loved it. I only had two small bites. My daughter ate the rest. She gave it two thumbs up.
I was surprised to see my bill. It was like $ 18 total but worth it. At least I tried this place out. If only there was one located in the South Bay.

Prettttty nice! I was really impressed with the huge variety of both American catering and Asian catering drinks they had here, the location was very nice, and the price was ok– what you would expect with other tea places to be honest.
I didn’t have much of a problem with service partly because I’m an impatient Chinese person and I will personally flag down service when I require it, despite this time my friend being the one to call for the server to come.
We ordered this awesome mung bean (green bean as translated in english) and red bean shaved ice with condensed milk and lychee jelly. Its the perfect treat on a hot summer day– so basically, most of the time in San Diego ;D
I’ll definitely be coming back to try more goodies here! And tea too– it is TEA station after all!

Mediocre boba and food. They reminded me of the Tenren Tea which I was familiar in New York. But I feel like the taste was not up to par. The bubble tea here seemed more foamy. Found out later tenren is their parent company. I have only been here twice, once with my aunt and another time with my coworker.
The time I came here with my aunt we were seated quickly upon walking into the seating area instead of standing on the other line at the counter. We ordered and even though it was busy the food came quickly as I did not eat anything for the day and my aunt mentioned that to the waitress. Food tasted wonderful — bet because I was starving but the bubble tea was too foamy.
I came a second time as my coworker suggested it since it was nearby. I was hungry since we ended work and this time we both waited at the counter on the other line for a good 5 – 10 minutes. The waiters and waitresses seemed busy and noone really directed us to a table. Only reason we waited is because there was a sign that indicated to wait to be seatef. Another two girls came in after and most likely assumed we were waiting for our drinks although we were standing right in front of them in line. They walked passed us and called a waiter and got seated before we did.
So if you dont get seated right away, you have walk up to a waiter or waitress to get seated. And food is okay — nothing too special.

Came here after shopping at Zion down the road.
I use to come here quite a bit… at least 1 – 2 times per week. I like the honey milk tea and coffee milk tea. I’ve tried hazelnut milk tea, honeydew snow ice, green tea and many others. I don’t ever remember having a bad drink. They have some great hot teas as well.
If you’re in the mood for appetizers or a light meal, they do serve food. The food isn’t great, but then again I come here for the tea.
They do have outdoor seating with heat lamps. Parking isn’t too bad. The people that decided on the size of the spaces tried to maximize the amount of parking spaces and sacrificed the ability to park comfortably.
This place is more expensive compared to boba time. Customer service can be bad. One time they forgot to add boba to a drink and they were kind of rude about their mistake. Another time we ordered a green tea (no milk), but they added milk. Sure, they fixed it, but they were kind of rude about it. These are some reasons I am no longer a regular.

What I liked:
–Lots of spacious parking for Kearny Mesa
–Lots of seating, both indoors and outdoors
–Free upgrade with Facebook check-​in for entire party
–My go-​to order, osmanthus oolong tea with boba
Tea is definitely on the pricier end as is expected with Tea Station, but the free upgrade to large size makes it worth it. Popular, late-​night, non-​alcoholic spot to hang out and chat with friends.

Tea Station seems to be a relaxing place to grab some drinks, hang out and talk to some friends in a mellow atmosphere. They have waiter service here but they didn’t seem to be so happy with you sitting yourself, so its better to just wait up in line at the front to get seated. This place offers the usual milk tea stuff such as bobba drinks, tea, coffee and also some sweet pastries to go along with it. Their menu is pretty extensive, so there is lots of options.
I am not a big fan of milk tea so I decided on some of their coffee. You might call me boring, but I only drink coffee black (), so I forwent any added sugar or milk to my coffee. What I do like about Tea Station is people’s ability to ask for half sugar, no sugar, etc. Not many places offer this and just stick to the standard massive load of sugar in your drink. Giving the customer the option is an excellent idea.
Tea Station isn’t the largest of venues, they have limited seating options inside, but they do offer some outdoor seating. However it was about 90 degrees outside this day and we weren’t about to sit outdoors. Other tea shops have larger areas for group meetings, school study groups, etc. So if you need a larger area with more seating, Tea Station may not be for you.

My milk tea with boba was made with freshly brewed black tea at Tea Station. You can’t do better then that. I like it ¼ sweet, so I can really taste the freshly brewed tea. It’s $ 5.75 for a large milk tea with boba. I also tried the Macha Ice Cream Milk Green Tea, ¼ sweet, regular size for $ 5.50. But this one was too bitter for me. I’ll stick with the black tea.
I tried the Taro balls, but they were a little gooey for my taste.
This is a relaxing place to grab a table inside and sit with friends. You need to ask to be seated, as they save the bigger tables for bigger groups.
Staff was helpful and attentive. I’ll happily return here for «real» tea. Look forward to trying more snacks as well.