ChaTime San Jose

Good quality, nice atmosphere, and friendly staff. A+++
Recommend the roasted milk tea. Note: it’s sort of an acquired taste, didn’t like it the first time but it grew on me.

I used to love this place. After not coming here for a while, I realized this place is just a-​okay. Pearls are kind of hard :(I don’t remember this from before, so I’m guessing it also might be inconsistent. The wait time is really long. I find a lot of times there’s only one girl in the front, while the other one is somewhere in the back; super inefficient. 20 minutes to get my drink after I paid kinda kills my vibe.
However, my fave drink from this place is the chatime roasted milk tea w/​egg pudding!

First time I came here, I got the grapefruit tea with boba and it was delicious. My sister got the winter melon tea with boba and it tasted weird. There are other places that have better winter melon. The chicken was good and came with a sweet and sour sauce.
My second time coming here, I got the kumquat lemon juice. I’m a HUGE fan of kumquat but idk what they made but it definitely was not kumquat… I should’ve went back to ask for another drink but I already drove away.
I think I’d probably have to try more drinks to really get a good feel of this place. 3 stars for now.

One of my favorite spots! Tea is good! Sometimes you’ll get those occasional missing topping you requested but I guess it could be forgiven since its only .50. Most of the time its on point! Haven’t tried the food. Could get busy sometimes and the wait could be 15 mins plus.
#1 w/​Egg Pudding and Grass Jelly — Bomb DOT COM

Can’t say bout their other drinks but I like their mango green tea :) I wanted strawberry green tea but they don’t have it. I think it was around $ 4 – 5 bucks for a large. I only got their popcorn chicken but it was just okay nothing special, comes with sweet sour chicken. Not that big portion though.

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked Chatime. By no means was I expecting a Tapioca Express or Quickly’s, but I definitely wasn’t expecting it to become one of my newfound favorite tea spots in the area.
Chatime has a fairly large variety of drinks on their menu, ranging from fruit teas, regular teas, milk teas, smoothies, lattes… And then a snacks menu to fill those popcorn chicken cravings.
Their teas were fragrant/​flavorful and by adjusting the sweetness, I was able to easily taste the tea in my fruit or milk tea. However, adjusting the sweetness for the supposedly popular grapefruit tea left the tea tasting like nothing more than grapefruit juice — not really worth the cost, in my opinion.
Recently I tried the Japanese Sakura Sencha, I have no idea what this is, but I liked it! Packed with lots of tea flavor, so if that’s your cup of… tea.(haha.) This isn’t a bad choice. However if bitter/​strong tea tastes are not what you like, then I would avoid this one. The oolong milk tea is a fail-​proof choice, on the other hand, since it’s both sweet and the oolong tea gives it a very pronounced tea flavor, but the milk part of it balances that out by giving it a milkier, sweeter taste than oolong tea normally is.
The décor of the place is very welcoming and relaxing. My friend and I ended up sitting in one of the booths on a lazy Sunday afternoon with our drinks, reading car magazines, talking and laughing about miscellaneous things in life. It also seems like a good spot to study since they offer free wifi. The only downside to their decorations is that the menus are faced in directions people aren’t able to stand directly in front of. I had a very hard time reading the menu from over the counter, at a very slanted angle. The toppings list taped on the other side was blocked by some table and chairs so I did not have a direct view of that either. This problem could be alleviated by offering paper or to-​go menus, but I wasn’t able to locate any.
Overall, 4.5 stars for tea/​food, rounded up for great environment for hanging out with friends or to study.

I’m shocked that I liked this place so much. I’ve gone to the Milpitas location a few times and was always less than impressed. Not sure exactly what I’ve disliked, but the tea just isn’t the best.
Anyway, I went to the SJ location when I was hanging out with my inlaws and had an awesome time. There were lots of comfy seats and areas to hang out. The drinks were yummy. The mango green tea was my favorite – sweet without being overly so.

Hot taro with grass jewwy (Asian accent) and half sugar is bommmmmmmmmb! They use the good taro where it’s like Malto-​meal not powder! Mmmmmm I’m not even high nor do I even smoke I’m just saying someone who was high would probably love my drink! Loving their paper cups too, they’re safer for the environment. Thank you come again!

I absolutely love this place. It’s great for hanging out (they offer games that you have to ask for) and for studying sometimes.
I enjoy their chatime roasted milk tea and calamari rings. The calamari rings and popcorn chicken are piping hot so don’t shove them in your mouth quite yet.
Service is great. The one time I studied here, the cashier offered me a cup of water even though I just ordered popcorn chicken.
The last time I was here with my friends, we ordered a mild popcorn chicken but it was too spicy. So they gave us a refund.

They have the most perfect boba texture. Just the right amount of sweetness too! The reason for only 4 stars is because they don’t have Honeydew. Wintermelon is similar. But still a solid place :)

My favorite drink at ChaTime is the Oolong Milk Tea with pearls and an order of mild popcorn chicken. Their service is pretty quick and the quality is always on point every time I come here. Their popcorn chicken is pretty meaty unlike some other boba tea joints I’ve been to and also includes some cooked garlic cloves. The place is nicely furnished and has a pretty generous seating area to accommodate along with free Wifi if you’re wanting to sit in and enjoy your drink/​food there. They have FiveStars Rewards here so don’t forget to give them your phone number so you can get a free drink when you accumulate the required amount of points to redeem.

I love coming here to grab drinks and catch up with friends. Nice ambience and plenty of seating areas to just chill. You can also ask for board games or cards to play with. It’s definitely one of my favorite boba places! I always get the roasted milk tea with boba and egg pudding. Trust me, it’s the perfect drink and they are very generous with toppings.

Pretty consistent milk tea place that’s more on the sweet side!
My fave drinks include the Roasted Cha Time
with boba or grass jelly or the Barley Milk tea with the same toppings.
Sweet meng adjustments here are DEF recommended. I usually get 30% if I get the toppings, and 50% without. Even with the adjustments, some days it can still be a little too sweet
Overall, this would be my go-​to milk tea place since it’s the closest place to my house!

I ordered the milk tea with extra espresso but made it clear I did NOT want the tapioca.
They gave me a ton of tapioca.

Meh. That’s what this was for me. Not sure if it was because I chose the wrong thing to drink or it could’ve been better if I had adjusted the sweetness but it wasn’t very good to me. It should’ve been good though because the ChaTime milk tea was labeled as #1 on their top drinks and I think the mango green tea as maybe 4^th. They both tasted like Quickly but a sweeter version.
Aside from being not so great taste-​wise, they did however have TONS of options! The place was packed and I loved how they had their holiday décor set up already. Everything in the store was purple — the chairs, the lamps, etc.
Not sure if I’d give this another try though.

My brother wanted to take me here after our haircut. We both ordered a large jasmine milk tea with pearrrls. The milk tea tasted great and too sweet. They add the right amount of ice so does not taste too watery. The milk gives great balance flavor with the tea. Good customer service and they accept debit/​credit cards!

My previous review situation was a one time thing at Chatime for me. It was really sweet that Diane (I’m guessing she’s the manager/​owner) reached out to me and took the time to message me personally checking in on me and trying to figure out what happened to get me so upset with my drinks. She had told me that it was a technical problem not the ladies’ fault.
Putting that behind us… I had to come back to my main milk tea place eventually. And I did! When I came I ordered a bunch of drinks (4-​all my favorites: roasted mt, jasmine mt, mango gt + grapefruit gt).
They all tasted great and I don’t ever doubt Chatime in making a bad drink for me, I really do blame the machine. Cause like I’ve said in my previous reviews, Chatime drinks are consistent and it’s quite rare that I get a bad drink.
Special thanks to Diane for being such a sweetheart and caring for me (a customer) like a friend.

I love places with a color story that flows and ChatTme is adorned with purple and neutrals! Love it love it love it. I actually missed out on this place for a while because the plaza it’s located in scared me away until I found myself in the area and decided to wonder in. The parking lot is huge so that’s a plus! It’s really spacious inside and I love that the fuzzy seats are rather large because it makes you feel so tiny and further gives the impression of how spaciousness ChaTime is.
Like majority of milk tea places, you can adjust your sweetness level to your liking and from experience, this place is pretty much on point with making sure your drink isn’t too sweet if you lower the sweetness and the other way around. I really enjoy their roasted milk tea and hot matcha green tea! Probably my favorite place for those two drinks!

Probably my most favorite milk tea place right now. I call it the purple place (not to be confused with Purplekow which I do not enjoy at all) because it is completed decorated in purple lol. All of the staff that I have encountered have been very helpful. Happy to answer my questions and make suggestions based on what I like.
Love that they use non-​dairy creamer so I don’t get a tummy ache. The milk teas I’ve had so far have been pretty good. Haven’t come across one that I don’t like yet. I’ve liked the roasted milk tea and the matcha green tea. The pearls are pretty sweet, so if you’re plannin on getting them, you might want to decrease the sugar in your drink to balance it out.
It’s also a really great place to hang out, lots of inside seating and I think they have a couple of seats outside as well. They have a tv, but I don’t think I’ve seen it on before. They have some games as well but it’s pretty messy and sparse. I think there’s only jenga, cards, and dominos. And of course there free wifi!

Came back the second time to Cha time with the hubs. He had a big craving for boba and asking me non-​stop (seriously who is the guy here!!!) to accompany him even if it meant walking for 20 minutes just to go there (gas prices are high~save gas, walk!), so even when it was passed 7 pm we went out and started walking.
Cha time is located in between a Mexican taqueria and a massage parlor, you wont miss it since on the end of the strip there’s Popeye’s on the left and 24-​hour fitness on the right.
When you come in you would be greeted by purple plushness décor. They got sofas, walls, light decors in the same hue. Seems like this would either be a favorite hangout for oompa loompas or the owner is just into this color palette. LOL. They do offer free WIFI and there were games that you could try (jenga, cards, etc.)
The drinks I have tried is the green matcha milk tea with puddling and pearls and the banana milk tea with pudding and pearls. All this with a ratio of 50 — 30 on sugar and ice. The matcha is prominent in taste, you would just not see but really taste the matcha-​ness of your drink. The banana milk is what I liked better. refreshing and blends well with my pudding and pearls. The hubs sticks to his chocolate mouse drink with pudding and boba. Why he likes it (tastes like Nesquick to me) is beyond me.
We also got ourselves some basil and garlic popcorn chicken which is so tender and flavorful. I did kinda miss the essence of the basil and I did wish there was more per order. They do offer sweet potato fries but I will just have to get that some other time.
They do give the five star card for free which allows you to receive a free drink on your birthday and another free drink when you already had 10 previous orders.
The people behind the counter are nice but they tend to stay hidden at the back when no one is ordering anything. This might be a regular go-​to place for my boba craving hubs… we’ll see.