Brewed to Order: Chicha San Chen's Bubble Tea

Love bubble tea? Chicha San Chen a Taiwanese brand of bubble tea that is a bit different from others. They brew each cup of tea individually to order and use real tea leaves rather than powders. The fruit flavours are made with fresh fruit and the seasonal taro is made with real taro made every morning in store. Find out the lowdown about Chicha San Chen!

All of my friends love bubble tea but I think the one that likes it the most is Sophia. She has bubble tea practically every day and excitedly told me about Chicha San Chen. Chicha San Chen means "Eat tea three thousand".

You can either your tea order via the interactive displays but as I'm a newbie to this shop I need help so we walk up to the counter where they offer us a taste of their teas and then open up canisters to let us smell of all of the teas which is nice. The mango green tea that I try is delightful and we smell the oolong jasmine tea which is lovely and fragrant.

Brewing to order does take more time and there is a sign that the current wait time is around 8 minutes per tea although it can take much longer so you do not want to be in a hurry for the tea. I find myself confused but gently guided towards what to order. While I prefer fruit teas, I am tempted by the seasonal taro tea and order the taro tea with boba pearls.

With the sweetness, I usually ask for the step above no sugar which is either 25% or 50% sugar depending on the shop. But here their full sugar "Perfect" tea isn't sickly sweet but nicely sweet so that you taste the fruit and tea. You can also get light ice or no ice (which is what I opt for since I won't be drinking them straight away).

I'm a passion fruit freak and love green tea so I went for this one. It isn't overly sweet but you get a really nice tea flavour to it. I would have loved a bit more passion fruit in this though because it takes a back seat to the green tea flavour.

I try some of Sophia's mango osmanthus oolong tea and it's my favourite of the three. The mango green tea is definitely the pick and if I were to come again I'd get this one. Also if you get a tea by itself not in a bag they put a cute little string around it so that you can carry it via the string.

There are four taro specials and I choose the bubble milk tea with taro paste with black tea, cream, taro paste and boba pearls. I really like the taro paste with this and they tell us that they make this using fresh taro in house every morning. It has a more subtle taro flavour than other taro pastes that are made using flavouring but it's so smooth and thick that it's nice to get some of this in every slurp for textural contrast.

And if you're going to take these away (I was bringing them home to Mr NQN) you can also buy an insulated bag. The cups also have a little removable seal that you can put back in case you do want to transport them after trying some. Nothing leaked in my bag so they do seem quite leakproof (although we were careful).

So tell me Dear Reader, do you like bubble tea? And what is your standard order?

This meal was independently paid for.

Chicha San Chen

339A Sussex St, Sydney NSW 2000

Open 7 days 11am - 10:30 pm

Phone: (02) 9261 1295

https://www.chichasanchen.com/en/