(food)Review: Tea Era .Boba. .Bubble. .Pearl. Tea

I'm not gonna lie, Tea Era in Mountain View makes my most favorite pearl tea ever, so this review is going to be plenty biased (but reviews are biased anyway, so...). Their two signature teas are the roasted oolong and the roasted barley, both of which are brewed in-house and not made from powders. As such, sometimes the flavors may be a bit lighter or stronger depending on when you go and how their batches turn out, but for the most part you won't be disappointed if you like either of those flavors. The roasted barley is a nice coffee substitute for when you don't want the caffeine, and you get a nice beauty and cooling benefit from the barley, too. Oops, is my Asian showing?

Strawberry flavor with real chunks of strawberry!

Tea Era does use powders for most of their other flavors and non-dairy/powder creamer for their milk, like most pearl tea cafes. They say it's because it gives a much nicer milky flavor than milk does, without drowning out the tea. However, where Tea Era really shines are the PEARLS! These pearls are the best -- I believe they soak them in honey or some sort of light syrup so that they're slightly sweet and stay firm and QQ (chewy). A lot of the other chain brands usually soak their pearls in water or keep them for too long, making them really mushy and sticky and inconsistent. The Verde just a few blocks away is guilty of this -- I once had a cup where the pearls were all mush, and my cousin's cup had undercooked pearls that were still hard in the middle. Gross.

Roasted oolong, large size.

Tea Era also sweetens their tea just right. A lot of other places I've been to have teas so sweet that I feel like I have to drink water after, but not Tea Era's. Of course, if your tastebuds are even more sensitive than mine, you can always ask for half sweet or not-sweet. They offer a LOT of flavors and I am not even close to trying them all yet. They also offer different chewies, like konjac jelly and pudding. There are some flavors that aren't as good as others (Thai Tea comes to mind, since I don't think they make theirs fresh), but for the most part you can't go wrong.

9/10

Tea Era's Yelp page
271 Castro St
Mountain View, CA 94041