Chit-Chat Cafe

The chit-​chat family is a great place to go to have some great bubble tea. It’s a bit pricy at $ 4.25 average per cup of bubble tea, but it’s very good. The service is top notch, so much so they know my name and learned my favorite drink so they are making it before I walk in. ⁸⁄₁₀ will definitely go back (many many times).

Little café/​smoothie shop on the corner. Awesome Thai Iced tea boba smoothies! Staff is efficient. Food is good. Not a bad place to chill out for awhile.

Taro smoothie with boba and lychee. Not mixed correctly. Boba mushy and tasteless. If this would have been my first experience it might’ve been my last.

I love this pace! I’m going to be totally honest, the bubble tea is a tad too sweet for me, but I don’t really even care. The people who work here are so sweet and cute and they serve a mean smoked salmon bagel as well as bento-​y stuff. Prime location … ¹⁰⁄₁₀ recommend the couches are nice and they have board games ! I think this place rules.

It’s a good, solid place if you want to grab a quick bite or a coffee. If you like to support small business, this is a good place to do it. The smoked salmon bagel is my go-​to and the mochas are decent as well.

I went in here for a milk bubble tea and the guy was very polite and sweet. When I ordered he assured me it would be out soon. After receiving the wrong order, I told the female who made it and she proceeded to just stare at me… And didn’t offer to make a new one. She assumed it was alright. So it took it anyway (what did I have to lose?) after taking a drink of the beverage alongside the tea and the bobba came an unpleasant texture of WAX. There is a thick coating of inedible wax at the bottom of my cup and all throughout my drink. I’m disgusted. I won’t be going here any more… I’m extremely confused and disappointed.

Don’t waste your money here. Their tea tastes so bad. The Thai tea doesn’t even taste like Thai tea. WTF? Everything is way too sweet, weak and/​or weird tasting. How do they stay in business? Tried them twice, thinking it might be a fluke, but no. Go to Honey’s, a ten minute walk away, for better bubble tea.

Drinks were extremely disappointing. Would have given 2 stars if I was judging the drinks themselves, but the older Chinese man who runs the shop is very lovely.

Okay, so I’m from SoCal and this boba was terrible. Plain boba I get has no flavor but at the boba was too chewy. I get Thai Tea on regular. This thai tea tasted cheap and way too sweet. I don’t plan on going here again for boba.
But I would be willing to try their bento box special. We’ll see.

Milktea is not too bad but This place annoy me so much when EVERY time I ask for NO ICE. There always ice in my cup. Like seriously. And once I was actually tell the girl «can u make sure there wont be any ice please cuz last time I asked but I still got ice cubes in my bubble tea»
And she still putting ice in my cup. I feel like ice is on sale or something. Or probably they cant live without putting ice in bubble tea.
But life sucks without bubble tea. I hate this place but still coming back (just not too regularly). So it would be amazing if there another bubble tea place around campus…

I come here about 2 – 3 times a day. At least 4 – 5 times a week. I get their passionfruit blacktea because it’s a simple drink that cannot possibly be made incorrectly. As for everything else, like most bubbletea places, they all use power for flavor. Long story short, after 3 years of being a loyal customer and bringing in countless people to share my love of bubbletea, I will say that I won’t be returning ever again. I brought 2 friends of mine to buy some drinks. My friend got her drink and accidentally broke the cup as she was putting in her straw. About two ounces were spilling out and the owner was hesitant to give her another cup to pour her drink in. He clearly looked upset and my friend already felt bad enough for making a mess. She asked for a wet towel to clean up the mess and the owner continued to be rude about it. After she handed him her drink he poured it into a new cup and only gave her what was left over of the drink! Seriously??? Not coming back. It’s not worth the mediocre service, hard boba and less than average drinks.

Chit Chat Café ought to do better. It has lots of menu items and seating, which sounds good, especially for students at the adjacent Portland State University. But lots of the food items are of low quality and pricier than at the nearby carts. They do have some bottled beverages, bagels, games and books though. It may be just important to take good notes on what is good there and what is bad.
I walked in for a meeting. What I ordered was the bubble tea in green apple flavor. It came after six minutes and it had no particular flavor to it. Every place where I’ve had bubble tea in Portland does it better than at here. There are big tables though. Sometimes, they take awhile to appear at the counter in the morning. I wasn’t that fond of an entrée awhile ago. The light at the end of this tunnel is some couches.
Only go to Chit-​Chat if you have to.

Odd little café. Daughter had a toasted bagel and I had the 8 piece potsticker because we wanted a quick snack and were in a rush. Lots of Asian food but some of it looked suspicously like Costco food. Yakisoba looked good at the next table. It was fast and inexpensive though so no real complaints.
Plenty of seating so as a student, this would be a good place to study or have a small group discussion. Couches are a nice touch.
Male owner was friendly and pleasant.
Good location very close to campus with student housing above it.

Chit Chat is my go-​to spot when I have to study at the library. It’s fast and easy, near campus, and has a good variety of food & drinks.
The milk tea here is… 3 stars. Definitely best in SW, but mediocre. A little on the watered down side…
The boba is GROSS. DO NOT ORDER BOBA (pearls/​tapioca) with your drink. It tastes like straight RUBBER! You guys, this isn’t how boba is supposed to taste like! I swear! :(1 star for boba.
The food is decent. I’ve ordered the orange chicken platter & tofu yakisoba (on no meat Friday’s. S/​O to all my Catholic friends out there who know what I’m talking about) The portions are enough to make me full :)
The people who work here (who also own the place, I’m assuming) are very friendly and bring out your food & drinks quickly!

The brown sugar and cinnamon hot milk tea ($ 3.75) is creative and delicious.
Owners are usually laughing and in an overall good mood. Nice mixture of single and community tables and sofas. It is a cold in there though.

You get what you come for at chit chat. They’re located right below my student housing, so whenever I’m craving some bubble tea, they’re the closest fix. I’ve never been dissatisfied with the service or product I’ve received, but I haven’t been blown away either. I like the set up of the furniture as well — very cozy. They also offer a very wide variety of food although I’ve never tried anything off their food menu.
Milk and Thai bubble tea are really good — wouldn’t recommend getting any of the fruit flavors though.

Chit Chat is your run-​of-​the-​mill bubble tea shop. There’s nothing really special about the place. Not to say that it’s bad, but you get when you come for.
The best thing about Chit Chat is that it’s so wide open with plenty of seating. You can go with a few friends and find a place to sit and take a break.
They offer food items, but I wouldn’t necessarily want to pay for something that isn’t their specialty with other food options nearby. The prices for the food were okay, so it might be good if you’re looking to stay and study, but I wouldn’t go to Chit Chat to just eat.
The bubble tea isn’t bad. It’s what you expect out if bubble tea. They offer a wide selection of drinks, but not as much as other top bubble tea spots.
If you’re in the PSU area and craving bubble tea, it’s a safe place to go!

Milk teas are pretty good, and the few specials I’ve tried we’re pretty good too. I like that the pearls are sweet and chewy just like I like ‘em. Drinks aren’t too sweet, but you can always ask for less sweetener. Can’t speak to the food since I haven’t tried anything yet.
Free wifi is a good touch but only one little power strip in a dusty corner is no bueno. Unless that’s on purpose so folks don’t hang out all day, but wouldn’t you want folks to hang out and drink/​eat all day? Hmm.
Lots of tables and seating, though I’ve never seen it full. The couches are a nice touch but they are kinda grungy, I wouldn’t feel comfy sitting on them if I was a super germaphobe (I’m only a mild germaphobe thank you very much).
Perfect spot for a quick pearl tea to go, or to get some work done, assuming you don’t need to plug in.

As an out of towner, I came here with an in town friend who swears by this place. After going to nearly every Starbucks in the Portland area, I figured it wouldn’t hurt.
I’m not a fan of boba tea, the texture of the bubbles freaks me out. But, I did try the flavor of my fiancé’s tea, and it was good.
I went for the chai tea, thinking that it was just going to be tea. He asked me what kind of milk, and I was thinking chai tea with milk. It doesn’t actually say chai tea latte, but that’s what it was. It was good, but not what I was expecting.
There’s couches which is a nice touch, but they’re necessary. It was freezing in there so I needed to snuggle with my fiancé, anyway. Seriously. I wore my coat the whole time and still felt a chill.

This place is hilarious and I love it. I really struggle to describe the Chit-​Chat Café experience, but something about it just feels right.
Is it a coffee shop? Is it a restaurant? Is it a tea shop? I have no idea. They have an extensive menu of bubble teas, bagels, noodles and rice, coffee, and who knows what else. Last time I was there, they were selling 5-​gallon buckets (in case you’re in the market, they were $ 3 each). Is this the best tea house in Portland? Nope. Is it the best Asian noodles? Nope. They’re really not the best at anything that they do.
It’s also not the atmosphere that makes Chit-​Chat great. The store is one open room that at a glance looks somewhat like a cafeteria. Don’t count on plug-​ins… I think there is one power strip up against the far wall. But they have free Wi-​Fi and lots of seating.
When it comes down to it, everything on the menu is pretty good, the staff is friendly, and you’ll feel welcome while you’re here. It’s hard to explain why I recommend it, but I do, and I will continue to come back regularly.