Chatime (Broadway)

Bubble tea, the thing that I considered a fad when it first hit our city, has continued to thrive despite the competition.  Most, if not all are pretty decent with only a few exceptions.  With the aforementioned competition, those that suck are weeded out pretty quickly (like the one in Tsawwassen).  But when one closes up shop, there are usually a few more that appear out-of-nowhere (sorta like Hydra...).  One of the newest is Chatime that happens to be the #1 bubble tea franchise in the world.  I was invited out by ChineseBites to try out a few drinks at their Broadway location.

For myself, I wanted to go for something different in the Lychee Yogurt QQ with pearls.  I requested 1/4 sweet and it still turned out pretty sugary.  With that said, it did taste good though with the classic Chinese yogurt drink taste.  So it wasn't overly tart due to the sweetness.  As for the pearls, they were nicely chewy and were not affected by the cold beverage.  Viv decided on the Passionfruit Green Tea with coconut jelly.  She went for regular sweet and it was really sweet, especially with the coconut jelly.  The drink itself was refreshing and since they don't use powders, the flavour was not candy-like.

My daughter went for her standby being the Mango Smoothie with rainbow jelly and half sweet.  We found the smoothie to be blended quite nicely where there weren't any big ice granules. It was pretty sweet, but tasted like mangoes.  I guess the plethora of rainbow jelly enhanced the sugar-level.  While we were there, we had bumped into Sean and I was able to try his Roasted Milk Tea with grass jelly.  For me, this was the best of the bunch with balanced sweetness and an appealing milkiness.  The slightly bitter grass jelly paired wonderfully with the sweet drink.  So as much as there are far too many bubble tea places in town, Chatime fits in nicely with the better ones.  Love the customization options and the overall large selection.

*All drinks were comped courtesy of ChineseBites*

The Good:
- Plenty of customization options
- Lots of choice
- No use of powders

The Bad:
- Quite sweet, even with 1/4 option