We arrived at 8:35 and waited in line...it went out to about the door, which isn't too bad compared to how it was a few days back. We got to the front of the line at 8:55, ordered our drinks, and then waited about another 10 minutes for our drinks to be ready, so it was about 30 minutes total. This is by far the longest I've waited for bubble tea anywhere in the world.

The ordering process is very specific. For flavored teas, you have to specify if you want black or green tea, how sweet (regular, light, none), size (regular or very big), and type of add-in (regular tapioca, popping tapioca, taro, red bean).

We had the following:

Mango milk tea (green), lightly sweet, with tapioca
Green milk tea, regular, with tapioca
Almond milk tea (green), regular, with tapioca
Taro milk tea (green), regular, with tapioca

The best of these was the almond milk tea, which is made with a powder. It's therefore lactose free (no actual milk). The difference between this almond milk tea and the version at Wonderful Foods (and many other places) is that this did contain both actual tea *and* the almond milk...but to be honest, I couldn't really tell much difference. It was pretty good though, and not too sweet. The tapioca were on the sweet side, but texturally quite good. Not too soft, but no stiffness. I prefer less sweet tapioca, though. Also, the quantity of tapioca in all of our drinks was small....i.e. a smaller serving of tapioca, compared to many other places.

Next best was green milk tea. It seemed like the tea itself was better than most places, with a subtle flavor, not the intense jasmine stuff you often get at places like Quickly and even Wonderful Foods. The syrup at the bottom almost tasted honey-like, which I liked okay. I think it could be worth seeing what their plain green iced tea tastes like.

Next best was taro milk tea, which had a good taro flavor, but was a bit too chalky. This was also made with powder I think, but they didn't quite mix it well enough to give it the right mouthfeel. Bright purple, and I couldn't particularly tell that there was any green tea in it (though there was).

Finally, the mango milk tea was the worst. It's not something I'd normally order, so it's possible this combo wouldn't work anywhere, but I thought it was too sweet (despite ordering it less-sweet). Seems like they just made milk tea, and then added mango syrup (I noticed they are using Torani syrup for their syrups). But overall the combo was kind of gross, in my opinion. Might be our fault for ordering it, though it's featured on the menu.

Prices are pretty reasonable ($2.75, I believe, for most regular milk teas), which are a large size. So, I probably wouldn't dislike this place if there were no line, but as it stands now, I see no reason to go to TPumps when Wonderful Foods is two blocks away and is, in my mind, just as good (if not better).

After our drinks, the friend who had ordered the mango milk and I passed by Wonderful Foods as we walked back to the car, and since she had been disappointed with the mango, I brought her into Wonderful Foods to introduce her to their bubble tea (she had never been). She ordered an almond milk tea (hot) which we both thought was much better than anything we tried at TPumps!

So, glad that I checked this place out, but I certainly won't return until the line goes down below 5 minutes.

_"Dave MP"