Chatime Surrey – Customize Your Drinks!

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Chatime Surrey – Customize Your Drinks!

January 18, 2016 by Joyce

A 5th location of Chatime, a bubble tea franchise originated from Taiwan, has just opened in Surrey. Thanks to our friends at ChineseBites, I checked out the location before its grand opening day.

Drinks

At Chatime, not only do you get to choose from some 80-90 different drinks off the menu, you also get to customize your drinks by adding toppings and selecting your desired ice and sugar level:

Toppings ($0.50 each): Pearl / Grass Jelly / Pudding / Coconut Jelly / Coffee Jelly / Red Bean / Aloe Vera / Rainbow Jelly
Ice Options: 0% / 80% / Regular (100%) / 120%
Sugar Options: 0% / 30% / 50% / 80% / Regular (100%) / 120%

With that, here are the few drinks I tried:

Mango Green Tea (80% ice, 80% sugar, with Coconut Jelly) – This is often my go-to bubble tea because I’m a big mango fan. I only ordered it with 80% sugar, so it wasn’t overly sweet like most other ones I’ve had in the past. I could taste both the mango flavouring as well as the green tea. Nothing too special because it’s just a mango green tea, but definitely one of the better versions I’ve had in town.

Matcha Tea Latte (80% ice, 80% sugar) – Matcha Latte seems to be a popular item everywhere, including chain coffee shops such as Blenz and Waves. Naturally, I decided to order one at Chatime. Again, it wasn’t too sweet at 80% sugar. I didn’t add any topping with this one; I think pearl and grass jelly would work well with this, but red bean should be very interesting.

Chatime Roasted Milk Tea (80% ice, 80% sugar, with Pearl) – This was my favourite of the day. I can’t remember the last time I’ve had a regular milk tea bubble tea, but I was intrigued by the fact that this is roasted milk tea. It tasted like Genmaicha; the roasted tea had a nutty flavour, which was nice. I made this very traditional with some pearls. I hate it when pearls were undercooked and became tough and chewy (a good exercise for your jaw but not good for your digestive system). The pearls here were cooked through, soft on the outside but still slightly chewy inside.

Lychee Yogurt QQ (80% ice, 50% sugar) – This is a specialty drink. It reminded me of a lychee calpis with pearls and coconut jelly. I was glad that I ordered only 50% sugar because even at that level it was sweet enough.

Taro Milk Tea (80% ice, 50% sugar, with Grass Jelly) – Taro Milk Tea is another classic. The highlight for me was the grass jelly. It didn’t seem like the kind you get at most other stores. This version was a lot softer, still bouncy, and much bigger in size. We think it could be house-made – it’s probably better if it’s chopped up to smaller chunks so it’s easier to slurp them up the straw.

Final Thoughts

I really like that you can choose ice and sugar levels here at Chatime. I would suggest no more than 50% or 80% sugar as most of these drinks tend to be on the sweet side. Looking at its menu, Chatime offers a lot of interesting teas and not just the sugary, artificially flavoured drinks. Regular drinks range from $3.70 to $4.80, and large sizes are priced at $4.20 to $5.30. With family in Surrey, this would be a good location for us to drop by for a drink while we are in the area.