Tea Station
Taiwanese Fare

Years ago, my friends and I used to spend afternoons here, sharing a sweet butter toast or a pickled ground pork with rice while sipping on a refreshing milk tea, but since the prices here have risen astronomically (drink prices rose from $2-3 to $4-5; rice dishes were $6 and are almost $10 now), I stop by less and less. But Tea Station and I are like magnets, and as much as I resist, I still find myself mindlessly driving through Kearny Mesa to turn into their parking lot and aimlessly walk into their restaurant.

I stopped in with John for a tapioca milk tea yesterday and was pleasantly surprised by the great service and 15% discount on select drinks. A discount! How great is that? But why offer a discount at all? Why not just set the prices to post-discount rates, I wonder. The tapioca milk tea, itself, was SO GOOD. I've heard that there's an art to cooking tapioca pearls properly and after trying drinks at several tea houses, including Lollicup, Tapioca Express, Green TeaHouse, and Sam Woo restaurant, in my opinion, Sam Woo comes closest to rivalling Tea Station's boba pearls. In contrast to Sam Woo's plain and slightly gummy tapioca (though still very good), Tea Station serves boba that is firm, chewy, not at all gummy, with a hint of black licorice. I'm on my third frequent-visitor-card, and I need 5 more stamps to get a free tapioca milk tea. After talking about it, it's all I can think about now.

 

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