Gong Cha in Chinatown: Their First Store in Boston
- Boston Bubble Girl
- 2018年1月30日
- 讀畢需時 3 分鐘
When we think about famous bubble tea shop franchise, I believe that most people like me would say Gong Cha. Gong Cha (Chinese translation: tribute tea for the emperor) has always been a successful example of bubble tea shop franchise. It is considered to be the royal of the bubble tea business because of its global success.
Gong Cha originated from Taiwan in 2006. By 2016, it already had 46 stores in Hong Kong. It continued to branch out internationally, which it has stores in China, South Korea, Singapore, Philippine, New Zealand, Japan, Canada, the United States and so forth.
(Further information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gong_Cha)
Before setting their foot in Boston, it has couple of stores in New York and Texas. They ran a quite successful business in these two areas and people (including me) in Boston had been craving for having a Gong Cha store in our city. Finally, we have our Gong Cha since last November. The opening was pretty impressive. I saw on the news that there had been a long line of people waiting to get inside the store for its first week of opening. If you're interested in seeing long line of people, feel feel to check this article from Eater Boston: https://boston.eater.com/2017/11/17/16669896/gong-cha-tea-shop-chinatown.
Anyway, I never visited there until the end of January. And the visit was totally worth it.
The store locates at 40 Harrison Ave in Chinatown. The store is next to a real state agency and below a Chinese massage therapy place. It's definitely an interesting location choice.
A closer look at the store:
That's the menu.
Those are their top 10 drinks. The variety of their drinks is impressive.
They certainly don't give up any places to show off their top 10 drinks...
Wait...They even have white pearls! (look at the Lemon Ai-Yu with White Pearl drink)
This is another one inside the store..
When I went inside the store, I was "shocked" to see there weren't that many people that I expected there to have. By saying not that many I meant there wasn't a long line. But it was pretty crowded. Probably the place looked crowded because the shop is pretty small.
Although the place is quite small, there were 4 servers that day for service. The number far exceeded the number of servers in Tea Moji, which the area of Tea Moji is 2 times bigger than the one of Gong Cha.
I did not wait long to get to order my drink. I decided to go for one of the top 10 drinks they recommend. I ordered a large milk foam green tea. It costs 4.55 dollars with tax included. My friend ordered a medium Oreo milk tea. It is around 4 dollars tax included. Their prices are fairly cheap compared to other milk tea houses.
Here's the first look of my milk foam green tea. The milk foam is at the top of the drink. The boba pearls are at the bottom.
This picture gives you a better look at how big their bobas are.
Before tasting I thought the milk foam and the green tea would not blend well. However, I was wrong. Their flavor mixed perfectly together. The milk foam is not really thick and blends well with the tea part with some shakes. And I could taste the light fragrance of the green tea even when it mixes with the milk form. The whole drink tastes very different than milk tea. People who do not like overly-sweet milk tea would definitely like this drink. It is a very smooth drink.
How could I forget to mention their bobas? Their bobas are big and easy to chew. I could taste that they are really freshly prepared like what they claim on their website. According to their official website, their pearls are "cooked to perfection every 4 hours". At first I thought it was exaggeration. But now I could testify the statement is true.
That's what my friend's oreo milk tea looks like. You could still see the oreo crumbles from the outside. My friended order the drink with 30% sweetness sugar level (yes you could decide how sweet your drink would be). She commented that the drink would have been better if she went with 50% sweetness level. There isn't much sweetness in the drink. However, she praised the drink as it is smooth and the Oreo crumbles would not jam her throat.
It was such a good experience that I had at Gong Cha. If you get tired of the traditional milk tea with boba, Gong Cha is a good choice to have more tea options. Be sure to check out the place when you are not in a rush!
