Simply Boba

2:45 Sunday, super packed! Since it’s a restaurant, so many people were there to eat when I just wanted a drink. It took 10 minutes to get 2 milk teas, then when I tried mine, it had NO sweetener! I stirred it around & still nothing, so I brought it back.
When he brought out my drink, he said «make sure you shake it» whaaa? Shouldn’t the drink be mixed and shaken already? I used to work at Quickly, I would just pour all ingredients in and hand it to the customer. I won’t be coming back here, way too many options in the area for 20 minutes wasted

My boyfriend and I were craving some boba and were heading to Target so we thought we could try a new boba place from the plaza across the street. There were about 4 other boba places in this plaza and we just so happen to choose the one that probably disappointed us the most.
I got the Roasted Milk Tea, which tasted OK until I saw a dead bug in my drink! (See photos) I went from excited to grossed out real fast!!! My boba cup was also leaking and I didn’t know why… turns out there was a crack in my cup too… like did they drop this or something?!
My boyfriend got the Thai Milk Tea which tasted like powder… not fresh at all.
We were both so disappointed and only drank ¼ of our drinks before throwing it away. We will not be back.

I actually really like this place! Roasted Oolong Milk Tea & Earl Grey Milk Tea are my go-​to drinks here. Still have yet to try their other drinks but their Roasted Black Milk Tea is pretty popular. I usually stop by when I’m getting lunch in the plaza.
Tips: FiveStars rewards program available + they accept card! :)

I don’t remember this place being hyped up as much as Gongcha or Sharetea, so I didn’t expect much. It’s no surprise since Cool Tea Bar is right next door, though if I had to choose, I’d come back here.
The drinks were delicious and customer service was average, which is enough for me because customer service at many milk tea places is on the low these days.
Got jasmine milk tea :)! It has a fresh taste that I like. It’s also a chill place to hangout!

This shopping center has so many boba tea options, I like to do the rounds and try them all. I had the Strawberry lychee green tea with boba, without extra sweetener. By itself the lychee is pretty sweet. I really like the flavor of this and I also like the cups they use here. They are more sturdy than the other places. That may not seem like a big deal, but it’s nice to be able to hold a big drink firmly in your hand. It’s kind of a weight to starting this ratio. Trust me, I can do the math. The people here are super friendly and I like the décor. The drink sizes are pretty big for the price, which is great.

I am a huge boba lover and just recently moved to the area and I was totally freaking out because I’ve seen other Unilocal reviews for other boba tea places and they didn’t look so good until my fiancé and I tired this place and it was deff a great choice!
Although the customer service was not that great here and it took them 15 minuets to make our drinks it was well worth the wait! You can deff taste the flavor your ordered (most places are extremely bland) and our drinks were really sweet and I must say I was extremely impressed with the generous amount of toppings they scooped in our drinks! I would deff recommend this place to everyone but just to give everyone an advance notice the customer service here is not up to par.

Good customer service and very friendly staffs!
It doesn’t take a long time for you get your order. Good drinks as well — recommend fresh taro and roasted milk tea. The regular size is pretty big. Good place to hangout because there’s also other food.

Their teas were way too sweet. Boba was very smooshy and lacked any sort of flavor whatsoever. I got the peach milk tea (¹⁄₅) and my friend got the roasted milk tea (2.5÷5). To my dismay, they brought out a peach tea, no milk. Since we waited so long for our drinks, I didn’t feel like waiting longer for them to correct my drink, so I went with it. The peach flavor was quite strong, but it tasted like they dumped a gallon of sugar in. There was no tea flavor at all. The roasted milk tea was good, but was also wayyyyy too sweet. The tea flavor was there though, so I recommend getting 50% sugar on this one. Also, note that if you ask for no ice here, they give you less tea. Considering how many great milk tea places there are around this are of San Jose, I probably won’t be coming back here any time soon.
Pros:
— roasted tea had a good tea flavor to it
Cons:
— pricey
— boba was way too smooshy and lacked flavor
— teas were really sweet
— parking sucks (beware of all the crazy old asian drivers!!)

2.5 STARS
I guess Simply Boba is an appropriate name for this place. It’s simply a register in the front part of a restaurant, simply serving tea drinks. Definitely a no frills kind of place. They were never on my radar, but I was having lunch in this plaza yesterday and decided to drop by for a milk tea. It was Monday, December 21^st a little after 3:30pm.
I got my usual Black milk tea with Boba, Grass jelly and Coffee jelly, 25% sweet ($ 5). The sweetness was good as sometimes even 25% sweet can be too much for me. The tea was very light and milky. I like my tea strong, so I found myself wishing the tea flavor was more prominent. I liked the silky grass jelly and the chewy coffee jelly, but the boba was not good. Mushy and not much else. I kind of wish I didn’t get my drink with boba as it took away from the drinking experience.
For a place called simply boba, I wanted the boba to be, well… simply better. Especially when there are so many other options in this area. 2.5 stars rounded up to 3 since the cashier there was so nice.

Not bad. Really large cups for about ~4 dollars (I’m rounding up).
I ordered the sea crema with black tea. Matcha comes dotted on top.
Make sure to mix the drink before sticking in the straw or else… you can’t afterwards. Tastes better when the salt is mixed throughout the drink especially if you ordered without sugar.

I’ve been here a couple times and their drinks have been consistently good. It’s located inside of a bun mam restaurant but no worries, there’s plenty of seating and the smell isn’t too overwhelming while you are trying to enjoy your boba drink. The interior is modern, sleek and very white. I always order one of the milk foam drinks, either with Earl Grey or Jasmine and the tea flavor is definitely there without being diluted. The foam is also very good and they are able to adjust the sweetness levels for you. There’s plenty of other boba places within this plaza as well as in a 5 mile radius but I have to say this one is one of the better ones in the area.

I been wanting to try this place out, since my mom and I always ate at the restaurant next door. Every time I am in this area, I am usually too full to get a milk tea until this past weekend. When I first walked in, we were greeted, I ordered the Roasted almond milk tea with 50% sugar which def. was on point. She asked me if I wanted a small or large milk tea, and I asked for a small, but either the small’s are large or I got lucky. They also use the 5star reward points system so I am definitely coming back to get my 10% off my next drink.

Great value for their drinks which comes in 2 sizes. The large is huge.
The hubs ordered the Taro Milk Tea Boba. He liked it. They make it w/​fresh ingredients instead of using the powder.

Out of the like million of tea places in this one tiny plaza (okay there are like 5… that’s still a lot for one plaza~), this tea place would be my favorite here. Simply boba is simply… simple. Nothing complicated going on here, just a small, limited menu of (real) teas along with add-​ons and the option to adjust your sweetness level. Considering the plaza its in, I didn’t think this place would be on the trendier side-​complete with bright orange chairs, a pop of vibrant green here and there, woody-​ish looking walls, and a synthetic grass wall. It shares the same space as Bun Mam Ha Tien, so you can be seated to eat or you can order drinks at the register to the left.
We tried a plain green milk tea with coffee jelly, plain black milk tea, peach green tea, and strawberry lychee green tea with egg pudding and caramel pudding. All regular sweetness and their smaller size (I noticed the smaller cup does not have the cute Simply Boba logo). Green milk tea generally doesn’t have a strong flavor (green tea is lighter), where as black milk tea does, but the BMT still wasn’t that strong. I’m usually a fan of peach green tea at all places, and simply boba made it great (+the boba was really nice and soft), but the strawberry lychee stole the show. It was really refreshing and just sweet enough! i also really like that in addition to egg pudding, there was caramel pudding!
Overall the tea is a solid 3.5, but rounding up, it’s pretty decent, but I would probably only come back for the strawberry lychee with egg/​caramel pudding or try their other fruit flavored teas. If i’m in this plaza, this would be my tea of choice!

I don’t really know what I think about this place, but it is inside a restaurant. The sign outside says Simply Boba, but when I walked in, the corner had a menu for drinks and the rest was a restaurant. Odd.
The menu isn’t too extensive; there are a handful of milk tea items and slushies, along with your usual toppings. Price-​wise it’s good; $ 3.50 pre-​tax for a drink ($ 3.80 post-​tax) and $.50 for each topping. Since I don’t get toppings, this didn’t really matter to me.
I ordered an earl grey milk tea with 25% sugar no ice, and it came out after a few minutes. It wasn’t filled to the top though! –1 star for that. It was also pretty sweet for 25% sweetness. The earl grey flavor was good, although I question whether it’s real tea or powder. The flavor hit me in the face and then was gone a second later; somewhat strange. I don’t really know what I think about this place. They hand-​shake the drinks though, which is nice, but since they make the drinks behind the counter in the back, you can’t really see what they’re doing. I don’t think they brew their own tea though, although I’m not entirely sure. I might be back to try it again, but it’s a bit far from where I live/​work.

After a long, hot day of shopping with my sister and brother-​in-​law, we were in need of some refreshment and boba was the first thing that came to mind. We drove to San Jose, hoping to stop by one of our favorite places, but much to our disappointment it was closed for Labor Day. With a thirst that begged to be satiated, we decided to try something new and Simply Boba became our new destination.
Upon arrival to the plaza that it was located in, we realized that it had pretty stiff competition. In a radius of just a few feet, you will find Tapioca Express, Bobo Drinks, BFresh, and Cool Tea Bar. Probably not the best place to set up house, but hey, what do I know?
There was a grand opening banner hanging above the front entrance, so I was already a little nervous. Most boba places that start out new usually don’t do very well and unfortunately Simply Boba fell prey to this curse. The design of the establishment was pretty good with wide-​open space, a collection of booths and tables, and fun colors throughout. However, what sets Simply Boba apart is that they serve food here, but not your typical popcorn-​chicken-​and-​fries kind of food. They serve Vietnamese noodles and entrees here, which somewhat confused me when I walked in, due to the aroma of milk teas and fish sauce blending together.
There was a separate cashier for drinks, located at the front entrance, and another for food, located deeper within the restaurant. I only wanted a drink and ordered the roasted milk tea with pudding. The regular cup size was typical, but their large size was HUMONGOUS. Upon purchase, the waitress gave me a stamp card, buy 9 drinks and get the 10^th one free. When my drink was finished, they personally brought it out to me which was really nice.
As for the taste, I can’t say it was anything memorable. It wasn’t terrible, but it left more to be desired. I couldn’t really taste the tea, but the sugar was certainly prominent. I would suggest not having it at full sweetness if you were to ever try the drinks here. I also wasn’t a fan of the pudding which was strangely translucent instead of the yellow custard-​like color that I’m used to.
So all in all, I can’t say Simply Boba serves as any serious competition to the gazillion boba places located in San Jose. There are a few that I absolutely love around the area, so most likely, I’ll just stick to those.

Hands down to the best roasted milk tea I’ve ever had. Tried out this place in the beginning of this year but never actually had a chance to write a review until NOW.
What makes me give this review 5 starts is even after more than half a year, their milk tea quality tastes still just as good as the first time I had it. The concept of this store is they serve «bun mam» which is fermented noodles soup and milk tea in the same place. Sound quite smelly huh? LOL, but trust me, their milk tea are supper tasty, and even cheap!
I’ve had their roasted milk tea half a year ago and I kept craving for it but I had no idea why did I keep go to Bbfresh every time me and my boyfriend were in the area. After today, the story might change lol.
I had their roasted milk tea with half boba, half crystal boba. What I love the most is they only charge crystal boba for 0.50 cents while most of milk tea places charge them for .75 since the ingredients of making it costs more than honey boba.
I had my drink with regular sweetness and regular ice. It came out perfectly, even with the level of ice. Everything– just perfectly at a right level.
My boyfriend tried out their Sea Creama Jasmine tea with pudding. He’s one of those people who always stir the whole thing before drinking it. Surprisingly, the Creama remains just at the same no matter how much we stirred it. To me, as a person who have tried almost every milk tea places in this area, it means they serve the good quality of Creama.
At other places we had, the Sea Creama just dissolves into the tea, and I honestly don’t like it. It should be remain as thick as it should be since it’s milk and salt.
Overall, we will definitely coming back more often to try more of their drinks.
+: really clean store, have snacks comes along for milk tea, friendly service, quality remains just the same over time. ALSO, they upgrade your drinks to a bigger size which is HUGE for only 50 cents.
-: perhaps the smell of «bun mam» which is not quite pleasant?!? lol can’t blame it though.

Why go here when there are like 5 billion other boba places in this plaza? Well, it will be well worth it. I normally go 2 doors down to Cool Tea Bar, but I thought it was time for a change.
Simply Boba is decently new, so I decided to check it out. When I first walked in… I was shocked that they actually served food here. You can come here for snacks or even Bun Mam if you are up for it. I am unsure on what else they have, but I bet it’s bomb.
My latest obsession is Taro Milk Tea, so when I saw that they served «Fresh Taro Milk Tea» I was sold. When I got the drink… I was kind of amazed on how good it tastes.
They treat the milk tea really well and it has fresh taro pieces. Omg. One of the best Taro Milk Teas that I have had… and I drink a lot of Taro Milk Tea. It was creamy and had a good balance of taro and tea. I like it more on the Taro/​creamy side, so the tea didn’t bother me.
I would definitely come back and get the Taro again, if not… another drink !
DO COME HURRR. :3 TRY SOMETHANG NEW

I tried Simply Boba when it just opened since they had their $ 2 drinks special so I was generous enough to treat the kids. ;) Simply Boba is part of the small Vietnamese restaurant, similar to the concept of Phở Hoa and Jazen Tea on Tully Rd, except smaller. When you step in, the cashier is to your left at the counter to take your order. Since there’s minimal seating for a small restaurant, we sat at one of its tables since there wasn’t an actual waiting area.
I was recommended the Green Milk Tea and I was quite disappointed. It was green, but was it really Green Tea? My Green Milk Tea tasted more like it was Melon or Honeydew Milk Tea if that’s the closest guess of a green flavored drink. I’m not sure if it was a miscommunication, but I did not like my drink to finish it. My nephews thought their drinks were okay and wouldn’t mind having it again, but I rather stick to Cool Tea Bar next door.

**BOBA PRINCESS APPROVED**
SIMPLY…Tasty
SIMPLY…Quaint
SIMPLY…Friendly
SIMPLY…BOBA
Simply Boba is an addition to the large family of milk tea shoppes in East San Jose. It’s housed with Bun Mam Ha Tien and is essentially one in the same.
***3 STARS for the Milk Tea Quality & Ambiance***
[[MILK TEA QUALITY]]
Simply Boba offers a limited menu of Milk Tea, Flavored Tea, and Flavored Yogurt Tea. Toppings include boba, basil seed, aloe, and jelly (coconut, grass, green apple, lychee, mango, passionfruit, and pineapple). There are no creams or smoothies, as they offer regular, handmade drinks. I’ve tried Black Milk Tea, Oolong Milk Tea, and Jasmine Milk Tea with boba and grass jelly, and I have to say that BMT and Oolong are my faves! I usually get it LESS SWEET, as their default 100% is way too sugary for me (think like TapEx level). The tea taste is strong (unlike its neighbor) and I appreciate that they handshake their teas. Each is made to order!
[[AMBIANCE]]-wise, it’s okay. The restaurant tends to get crowded with patrons from both Simply Boba and BMHT. I appreciate the trendy interior though– cool modern seats and tables and a synthetic grass wall! It does get confusing if boba patrons are allowed to sit with the restaurant patrons?
****4 Stars for the Service, Prices, Location****
I visited a few times during Grand Opening week. Who could resist $ 2 Promo?! [[PRICES]]-wise, it’s Regular $ 3/​$ 3.50 (16 oz) and Large for $ 3.50/$ 3.75 (24 oz). Topping is free if you check into Unilocal or FB.
[[SERVICE]] needs improvement but their attitude is GREAT! Shoutout to JENNY (the young Asian/​Viet girl with long, black hair) for working so hard! She probably worked every day for hours on end and still greeted all the customers with her smile and friendly demeanor :) Grade A+++ They just opened so be more open and understanding about their confusion/​disorganized system. I don’t mind if places are new and still adjusting, but employees’ attitudes make the experience!
[[LOCATION]]
They’re located in the Asian/​Vietnamese plaza next to Target and across from Phở Y #1 and Yum Buffet. Parking is hell in a basket, but that’s just how it is around tons of Asian people.
=====================================
Decent Milk Tea & Boba Quality (Grade B)
Reasonable Prices (~$ 3 — $ 3.75 per drink): CHECK
FAST & FRIENDLY Service: CHECK
Decent Location: CHECK
Trendy Cool Ambiance: Half Check
TIPS:
+ Try their Milk Teas — recommend BMT or Oolong!
+ Pearls are soft and chewy; grass jelly is great tasting too.
+ Currently CASH ONLY bummer!
+ Sweetness and Ice Levels can be adjusted.
+ CLOSED on Tuesdays!