As we walked in, we were very confused by all the Harmony Tea Shoppe branding in Tsaocaa. We've been to two different Harmony locations before and came out disappointed both times so we were a bit apprehensive about getting a drink here. The barista explained that Tsaocaa has the same owner as Harmony Tea Shoppe, but this was a franchise and the drinks were made a bit differently. Since we had made the trip out, we decided to take the chance. We got one drink:
King of Milk Tea, Less Ice, 50% Sweet w/ Boba ($6.70) - They first start the drink by pouring some kind of thick liquid creamer mixture into a cup, then add the sugar syrup, ice, and tea from a dispenser. This is mixed together thoroughly and poured on top of some warm boba. I found that half sweet was still on the sweet side and the creamer is quite strong, releasing a very noticeable milky-forward taste throughout the drink. Some of the nice oolong notes do come out, with a bit of fragrancy and roasty undertones and aftertaste. The boba here is very bad. They use a golden boba rather than the typical black boba, but it's horribly undercooked here. The boba had one of the hardest textures I've had among the 100+ different boba shops I've been to across the US and Asia. It's just a very bad boba. With golden boba, you can pretty easily see how cooked it is - the more cooked parts turn translucent, while the less cooked parts are opaque. More than 50% of each pearl was opaque. We could not finish the boba and ended up throwing it out.
Like Harmony, the toppings here are $1.25, which is super expensive, almost double the price of other boba shops. They also charge a service fee in addition to the normal state taxes, even though you order using the kiosk for their convenience. Bleh.
In comparison to Harmony, the tea quality here is better, but the boba is worse. Similar to Harmony, the kiosk doesn't have any description for any of the drinks, so for some items you honestly have no idea what you are getting. I don't recommend either shop. read more