Culture Tea Bar

The service is bad, their attitude is so cower and ignore

so many teas, so little time. in the winter i like hot tea, in the summer i go for iced with bubbles. i love that you can customize your tea exactly how you want it re temperature, milk type, bubbles, sweetness. lately been digging the oolong selection but most recently tried the matcha. YES.

This is my fav. to go place in the neighborhood. Really nice selection of tea’s. Haven’t tried any dessert yet, but do get chicken BLT or ham and cheese croissant. You will say nothing but love ittt !

So far, this has been my favorite bubble tea spot in Manhattan. They have a wide selection, and they brew their tea to order — a nice change from the pre made milk teas you find elsewhere. I’ve tried the house blend black tea with milk and their oolong teas. Personally, I prefer the black tea. Note: their sweetness is on the light side. If you get half sweet, it’ll be slightly sweet and you’ll be able to taste the flavor of the tea pretty well. The bahn mi sandwich is also very good, and a sandwich + tea is a perfect lunch. The place is a bit small with seating for 5 – 7 people, so I’d recommend picking up your order and taking it elsewhere. Riverside park and Columbia’s campus are near by.

The sandwiches are tasty and good portion. Bubble tea is also great ! However, the service just in a contrasting way ! I don’t know why the staff can be so unpleasant to the customer.

Great bubble tea! Nice spot to hang out and study — they played really loud classical music while I was there, which I actually enjoyed.

What I tried: Iced Rose Oolong tea, slightly sweetened with milk; Iced Pomegranate tea, slightly sweetened with lychee, bahn mi, and banana pudding
Loved this place! There’s a great selection of teas and you can get them hot or iced; with lychee, bubbles, or milk. They also have a nice selection of sandwiches and sweets. I LOVED both teas. I was craving a milky, fragrant tea and the rose oolong hit the spot. However, the pomegranate that my sister ordered was delicious as well. The bahn mi tasted exactly like what I’d expect from a place like this. good but kind of like one you could make yourself at home. The banana pudding was delicious. The place has some seating, but is basically the size of a shoe box, so I wouldn’t count on being able to sit and relax. I’ll be back! (for the tea not the food)

Really good tea drinks. Mediocre boba. The pearls were too firm, either slightly undercooked or had been sitting in cold liquid for too long.
The oolong tea had great flavor and tasted fantastic.
The passion fruit tea was good too.
4-​stars for the tea, 3 stars for the boba. Will try again because I’m an optimist.

The bubbles were sweet and absolutely delicious. I’m more used to bubbles that are just tasteless so it was a nice surprise. I got the rose milk tea and you can definitely tell they use real tea leaves and not just some random powder.
As a bubble tea fanatic, I’ve tried numerous bubble tea places in NYC before (GongCha, Chatime, Kung Fu Tea, CoCo, ViVi) and various smaller bakeries in Chinatown. Culture Tea Bar is WAY better than any of those places and I highly recommend you try it. I’ll definitely be spending less time in those bubble tea chains mentioned and more time heading here!
1 star off for that time they didn’t have bubbles in the middle of the day –_–

You know that friend — from middle or high school and hopefully not later than that period of life — who is super nice to you one day, ignores you the next day, is nice to you again, and then talks about you behind your back? That’s Culture Tea Bar.
I’ve come here pretty often in the last two weeks, sometimes twice a day, to hang out, work, and get super caffeinated. Once in awhile, a customer will turn around and I’ll see the workers make fun of that very customer. That’s not cool.
Bubble /​pearls /​boba is not available until 11 AM and workers can be heard repeating this over and over before 11 AM, to the point where they sound unprofessionally irritated. Why not post a sign that clearly states this?
Note: the milk tea and coffee and boba themselves are nothing special. None of these are bad, but they are not great either. It’s like the un-​self-​aware ‘nice guy’ nobody wants to date.
It’s a hit or miss experience. Some of the employees are truly kind and want to make you a great drink or heat up a croissant just the way you like it. But other times, the employees can be seen scoffing at customers.
Today, in particular, I saw this happen twice in the span of 20 minutes. Today was noticeably chillier and the door was open. After it seemed like the open door was no longer needed for deliveries, I asked the lady behind the counter if it was okay to close the door. She said yes, then closed the door. About 1 – 2 minutes later, a guy comes out from behind the counter and turns on the air conditioner with a remote control. It became even chillier than with the door open.
I think most people would recognize this as passive-​aggressive, no?
After being chilled to the bone, I went to the counter and told that same lady I was confused about her being cool w/​my request and then going back on it. She looked a little embarrassed and explained that it was hot behind the counters, with the appliances and everything. Okay, that’s legit, and it’s a problem that can be dealt with pragmatically/​logistically, from a business perspective. As I was walking away, two of the employees looked me up and down and one gave a stiff upper lip.
For now, I will not be going back to Culture Tea Bar because its culture tends toward the covertly mean side, with a heavy dose of bad communication. I think I prefer bad Starbucks coffee, great employees, and a consistently comfortable environment to work in more than witnessing employees make fun of another customer at Culture Tea Bar.
I was ready to give this place 4 stars, but today’s experience was off-​putting and unprofessional, business-​wise.

I was really surprised to find such a high quality tea shop a couple streets down from Columbia! I just moved here and was frantically Unilocaling bubble tea/​boba places near campus, since I’m used to having 5 – 6 near me at all times in California. Although Culture Tea Bar was highly rated, it didn’t seem like as many people knew about it or went there. This made me question how good it really was, but I decided to give it a try. What a treat!
I ordered an iced osmanthus oolong milk tea with less sugar ($ 3.50), and though it was slightly sweeter than I would have preferred, the tea flavor was distinct and fragrant. I was very impressed to learn that they brew each tea to order with loose-​leaf tea leaves (using a tea brewing machine that looks similar to an espresso maker). It was refreshing to see that they had actual tea variations like Fuji Apple Black Tea, Cherry Blossom Green Tea, and Blended Black Tea rather than flavors (caramel, taro, etc.) that rely heavily on powders and syrups.
They do take credit card, but remember that there’s a $ 3.50 minimum. Since there’s wifi and some limited seating, it would be a nice place for studying when it’s not too crowded. However, the tiny space can get quite cramped, so I’d recommend getting a drink to-​go. Will definitely be returning!

Best milk tea around Columbia!

One of the cashers makes me not very happy with the experience in this tea bar. No smile. Rose black milk tea tastes a little bit bitter at the end. It was okay but I’m not going there again.

Pretty decent milk tea. Got the jasmine milk tea. It tasted pretty fresh and was not made of powder. The store itself is tiny but has a nice atmosphere.

Pretty good tea and I like how you can customize the amount of sweetness. I got my black tea with osmanthus + less sugar and it was perfect! I got the bulgogi banhmi and it was pretty good! It was the perfect place to get some work done, though it does get busy at lunch time when the Columbia kids come in for take aways. There is one outlet next to the pastry fridge. :) The staff is super friendly and sweet. Turns out the owners also run Jin Ramen a few blocks down. They also give you free wifi with purchase! No complaints here. :D

Bubble tea big time! I’ve actually never been in such a well run operation and was shocked at how the ordering, packaging, and even deliver works. Until you try it you’ll be left guessing what I mean as it is hard to explain really.
The space is super tiny even by NYC standards and outsourced pastries and baked goods are decent but not grand. It’s a hot spot for drink to go but in a strange area so I really don’t know how well known it is or not. All I can say is ill be going back in a hot day indeed for the iced tea options were impressive — fruit green, herbal black, and even oolong so that’s just impossible to neglect.

Right next to MSM and Columbia is this very convenient tea bar. I had their pomegranate black tea (sweetened) with a ham and cheese croissant and both were delicious! They would have gotten 5 starts if they’d had wifi and if it was a little warmer inside. The seating is small, but we didn’t have a hard time squeezing in on a Monday morning. Prices not to bad (like Starbucks) and the staff was super friendly. Recommend for a quick bite or coffee or tea on the go!

As much as several people and the rest of these reviews insisted their bubble tea was good, I just can’t help but strongly disagree. I even tried it twice (trying different flavors each time), and I just don’t see the hype everyone’s talking about.
First things first, the pearls themselves are actually very good, though this is more based on the second time I tried it, not so much the first. I don’t recall being that impressed with the pearls the first time, but I actually thought the pearls themselves were close to perfect on the second time. With that said, I think their actual tea is atrocious though. Each time I couldn’t even get myself to finish the tea, which is why I wouldn’t really return if it’s up to me.

This place was my first bubble tea place in Manhttan and the teas here are heavenly. Culture Tea Bar actually brews the tea instead of using that powdered shit. Their tapioca is just right and I believe that is the only topping they have. You can adjust the sugar level and choose what kind of milk you want in your drink. They provide stamp cards for frequent customers (10 stamps for a free drink, I think).
I took one star off because the prices here are a bit high and theres not that much seating.
I still love Culture Tea Bar though. Rose Black Milk Tea with bubbles for the win!!!

A cute little shop in between of Harlem and Upper West Side, hidden in sight but the shop is definitely something not to miss if you’re in the area
You might miss it if you aren’t looking but its a combined store of a bakery and boba. They have a good selection but not 100 342 354 choices. I would normally get just plain milk tea my first try but today, I went and got myself… rose black milk tea.
They LITERALLY brew a fresh batch of tea for your drink. Literally a scoop of tea leaves into your cup and shabang! While it took more than a minute (like many places does) to make, its worth it!
Rose black milk tea… HI! the first sip was like HI im a rose black milk tea! yea you taste the rosyiness of the tea… but not the stinky smelly rose perfume that kills your sinus but more like the light rose taste that like hello there. The milk and tea are noteable but not overbearing one another.
Im a happy camper!