Chatime

I stopped in here after dinner because Half and Half is closed on Tuesdays apparently, but I’m happy with the alternative.
I got the roasted milk tea with grass jelly and it’s exactly as described. A dark milk tea with grass jelly in it. Not super exciting, but still a decent drink over all. They allow you to choose the sweetness of the drink and I ordered it at 80% and it came out very nice. Not too sweet and the tea flavor was quite strong.
They don’t do anything special here, but they do milk tea as good as anyone else. So if you just want a quick fix and are in the area. Come get some. But I wouldn’t recommend coming out of your way.
They also have some seats and it’s pretty calm from what I could tell if you wanted to study.

I love Chatime! One of my favorite boba spots! When ever I come here there always consistent and the drinks are great! I recommend the roasted milk tea. Since they roast the tea leaves it is really smooth and nice! But for something more fun then I recommend the passion fruit QQ. They have little jellies and boba in them and are sweet! By far my favorite boba place!

so bad… just bought a drinks today… nothing taste at «ALL»…Milk tea is made of powder to come…
Passion fruit saccharin is used to do STH.
Need water to go in… everything just like a water… I’m not going back anymore ! NEVER!!!

Second time being here. Just want to give some advice. If there snacks to offer will be much more better. Anyway, the service is nice.

This review is based on service not taste as I couldn’t even order what I went for. So I went here for a specific milk tea they make and when I arrived, no welcome or greeting, but whatever. Second is I’m standing there looking at the menu and the girl just stared at me not saying anything still. When I attempted to order the milk tea, she said sold out. Now, as someone that is handling the storefront and taking orders, it really doesn’t hurt to maybe smile at least? She just gave me this look like her dog died and said sold out and didn’t try offering anything else or even small talk like oh yes these sell out pretty quickly because it’s…etc… She just stared at me… I just walked out. So for service, they really need to train these girls or something. She looks like she hates her job. Unhappy employee = bad service. Bad service = no returning customer.

We went here after dinner since chatime was good in Northern California. We craved for boba after five days trip to San Diego… we went in at 9:30pm and they told us milk tea was unavailable, boba was unavailable… OMG… their posted closing time was at 11pm and we went there at 9:30pm…a huge disappointment. I ordered two banana milk tea, one with 30% sugar along with coconut jelly and one with 80% sugar along with red bean. It turned out the one with coconut jelly was sweeter than the 80% one and the 80% sugar one didn’t have red bean in it. I am glad that we were just tourist here.

Yeah yeah so their drinks are decent but don’t believe the Unilocal time, they close they feel like it and when you try to tell them that their closing time on Unilocal says 11, they will argue with you and lie to your face. «Oh, it’s holiday time, so we close at 10pm» but it’s 9:50pm and there are tons of people inside. «Oh, uhh we ran out of time». Jesus. This is the second time they have done this. I’m done with these clowns here. Management get at me. This is unprofessional. I would rather walk around the street to blackball. At least they close as stated. PUNKS.

Good milk tea and drinks, very close to Chinese beverage shop! And you can choose how sweet and add boba or red beans into your drink.

Since the first time I came here, I have been a big fan of their roasted milk tea with grass jelly. I have been coming here once a week, until the most recent time when I was really disappointed with their service.
Here’s the story: I used to order their matcha milk tea with grass jelly and they charge $ 4.25. Even though they only have «matcha RED BEAN milk tea» on their menu, they let you substitute red bean with grass if you don’t want red bean. I got this drink twice with grass jelly instead of red bean without any problem (even the boss told us that if we don’t want red bean, we can substitute it with grass jelly instead). (I would like to note that the boss is extremely nice and cares about customer service.)
Allowing the substitution of red bean with grass jelly makes a lot of sense: Not everyone wants red bean with their matcha milk tea. Also, the matcha milk tea can be made without the red bean. So why force people to pay for the red bean when they don’t want it?
However, when I went recently, a female server wanted to charge $ 4.25 for matcha milk tea and an extra $ 0.50 for grass jelly even though I told her that I don’t want red bean and I want grass jelly instead. I said I have gotten this drink twice in the past and they have always allowed us to substitute the red bean with grass jelly. I politely explained to her that it would be unfair to charge us the red bean topping when we don’t want red bean. She didn’t care and said that whether we want red bean or not, we would still have to pay the same price for the drink and that we have to pay extra for the grass jelly.
In conclusion, beware: If you only want matcha milk tea without red bean, you still have to pay the price of the drink including the red bean. Thus, if you want matcha milk tea with grass jelly or boba, you would have to pay the price for: the matcha milk tea + red bean + topping, which equals to about $ 4.75. Essentially, you are forced to pay for a topping even if you don’t want it. It doesn’t make sense.

Their Iced Oolong Tea (Literal translation should have been «High Mountain Oolong Green Tea) is delicious & refreshing. Luv how you can taste the tea in this drink and the tea aroma is so vibrant! Will come back and try other drinks.

Great milk tea place with plenty of different teas to choose from. I ordered the Chatime special tea and it tasted a lot like that special tea they serve in the little cups at the finer Chinese restaurants. My kid got the mango snow drink and it was really good too.
I do think they need to add a space or hyphen to their name, so it will read Cha-​time or Cha time. I stupidly said «Chat time» and made a fool out of myself, bwahaha.

We ordered a grapefruit green tea and a lychee black tea. There were little lychee pieces in my tea even without adding extra toppings. Very unexpected and I’m very happy with my drink. There was only one person working there though so there was a little bit of wait time. Great place to quench your thirst on a hot day.

Decent price, great tea, and decent boba.
Cha Time is what you get when Lollicup and Tenren have a hipster baby.
Oh and free samples!
⁸⁄₁₀

Tried the honey green tea with grass jelly. The grass jelly was soft and the green tea just right in terms of bitterness. Sugar level was correct (ordered 50% sugar). Price was on the higher side in comparison to other local tea houses. I think Cha Time is a franchise as they have other international locations. It’s a quality tea house, but the prices are somehwat concerning. Staff was friendly, but lacked energy. With so many options in the 626, this place serves as more of a backup option. I do have to say that the grass jelly was really good.

My honest opinion says this place has the best milk tea I’ve ever had. They actually make the milk tea, shake it with whatever ingredients they put together as opposed to some places where they just spoon up pre-​made milk tea into your cup.
As for service, look. it’s not really about service for places like these to me. If your drink comes out good, then that’s all you can ask for. Cheers!

The milke tea here are great! Its real good due to the actual fresh of the milk that blend just the perfect amount of the tasty tea! When it comes with the grass jelly. You cant skip the screaming part: «so good!»
Its only the SAN GABRIEL store thou, somehow the other location store wont have the same taste.

I’m not exactly sure what people have been raving about this being a 5-​star establishment, because it is clearly far from that.
DRINK QUALITY:
Roasted milk tea is the standard and it’s pretty decent, but the roasted flavor only ends up as an afterthought due to the overwhelming taste of sweet creaminess, ultimately leaving you under the impression that it’s semi-​sweet chocolate milk. By the way, that’s with the drink ordered as half-​sugar already. Half sugar less, and then you’d probably have the right ratio to balance that earthiness and sweetness.
Also, I shouldn’t be able to taste the powder residue.
SERVICE:
They really need to work on this. For one, it’s not cool to not ask what size we want and it’s even worse to assume we want the largest size.
On top of that, it’s not proper to not allow me to return the change I gave you to void that transaction. Instead, you’ll decide to use an off-​hand calculator to give me additional coins and not giving me a proper receipt with any print that you did your math right. Lazy.
On top of that, you’re making our drinks at the SINK area where there’s obviously washed/​unwashed things sitting, even placing the final cups in the same sink area where the surface is clearly wet and not wiped. I believe there’s a counter on the other side, where you’re supposed to properly make drinks? Lazy. and gross.
Doesn’t hurt to smile either. Or apologize for screwing up.
ENVIRONMENT:
What seems to be a colorful attraction ends up feeling cold like a cafeteria ambiance, which makes me confused because the décor here makes me want to sit and relax for a little but the air is a little stale. Not really a place to sit and talk as it can get loud, but decent enough for a rest to digest a proper dinner.
Overall, this was a big letdown as I was told this was a popular and «great» chain in Canada. The staff on hand during my time didn’t care for their customers nor the drinks being made.
Clearly, the description for this business touts the chain for «freshly brewed tea» but reduces its teas to be premade and then stored in a giant container for their baristas to easily dispense; there are other tea places that actually brews their tea on order so that it’ll actually have that ‘fresh’ quality.
Sorry, this is a giant no for me and I wouldn’t recommend anyone going here.

Poor service, dishonest pricing ($ 0.50 for less ice??? doesn’t state the fee on the menu), below average taste. Never gonna go to this place again.

I am updating my review of this place from 4 stars to 5 stars! The reason why, the owner take care of his customers and he is training his staff personally so that every drink is prepared properly.
New favorite drink is their Thai Tea! Must have.

Location is a bit hidden on the busy streets of Valley Blvd where there’s tons of Boba/​drink shops. Disadvantage. However, I came here SPECIFICALLY for only one drink– Yogurt Lemon. So from my knowledge and through my friend — who lives in Taiwan, told me that Chatime is really good in TW. In my opinion, I thought the other drinks at Chatime other than the YOGURT LEMON drink was only A-​okay…
I tried their Roasted Milk Tea with Boba– I tasted the «roasted» part but I thought the boba was only okay. I had better. My friend who tried this drink said it tastes like «burnt» milk tea which I guess they made the drink correctly. «roasted.»
I also had the Mango QQ drink– I personally think it’s too sweet but I guess I can tell them to make it ½ sugar or so.
Overall, their yogurt lemon is very refreshing and I only come here now for this drink.
Service was okay. When I first went to Chatime, there’s this female worker that ALWAYS works there but she always have some attitude whenever I come. She seems to either hate me or just hate the job. I don’t see her anymore, assuming she probably got fired because she really should. She was rude.
Oh! But there’s a male worker that used to work at night with glasses, he’s very very nice and he would put a slice of lime in my Yogurt Lemon drink to make it even look more refreshing. Presentation does matter.