HiTea

Amazing bubble tea and it’s cheap! Got a snowy Mango. Cozy environment with bathroom and free WiFi. Able to relax and enjoy

With a new establishment you always need to be concerned that the reviews will be those of friends of employees or owners. However, I am no shill and my reviews are legit. I can say after trying this place on multiple occasions that this place does a few things pretty well and has become my go-​to for tea in the area.
First, the tea! Its probably the best in the immediate area (or at the very least tied with Cool Tea Bar). My favorite tea here is currently the peach oolong tea with agar boba. Its nice, and I can taste the strong tea flavor come through. The selection is not expansive as others tea places, but they do the tea and boba part well here.
Ambience wise, It’s all brand new and clean. Big plus! Also the space is pretty roomy. The tables and chairs are all in the back. This makes for a quiet and sort of private space to drink, study, converse with friends, etc. Every time I take a look, I see one or two people studying or working in this area. Its a decent space for sure.
Hey, I’m in Chinatown. I can get lunch for under $ 5! That’s why initially I thought that this place was expensive, but for boba the price is only slightly above average (but only very slightly). $ 3.75 for most of the drinks, extra 50 cents for additional boba toppings. I think they cups are decently big, so I think its an okay price..
The tea baristas are all very pleasant. I made a comment about how I should have signed up for five star earlier, since I only just recently signed up, and they credited me a few extra points toward a free drink or snack, out of kindness of their own hearts. Good service!
Finally, for snacks they don’t have popcorn chicken but they have some chicken wings, and curly fries. The snacks are all about $ 5 or less, though I have not partaken.

I was thrilled to find out that a new milk tea shop opened up a block away from my boyfriend’s place. Especially since Cool Tea seems to have shut down a couple of their locations. That was my go-​to for tea on the Chinatown/​NB border. But when we walked up to HiTea, we were awed by the shiny, new shop with the big adorable signage.
We were also totally puzzled by the menu! Now I’ll admit, I’d never had milkfoam or cheesefoam style tea. I just haven’t seen it around here. The menu is puzzlingly, needlessly complicated. I totally appreciate the level of customizability in drink choices – but the layout of the menu is bizarre. The font is soooo small, the illustrations don’t illustrate anything about the drink categories (because they’re too small), but just take up space.
So, here’s the skinny. Hopefully the owners figure out a way to fix the menu because it’s bonkers confusing. There’s puff cream and there’s milk foam. Puff cream gets all mixed into your milk tea. Milk foam sits on top. There’s two types of milk foam – salt milk foam and cheese milk foam and you can choose which kind. If you want milk tea but you have a foam phobia, you can get it without the foam or cream and they call it «Classic Aromatic» on the menu. If you want puff cream all up ins, it’s called «Originate,» and if you want milk foams all up ons, they call it a «Pure Milk.» I know.
If you want some of that salty foam or cheesy business, but don’t want a milk tea, they have a Teaspresso called a «Pop Star.» If you’re scared and confused you can just get a snow or «Italian Snow» or I’m not sure which it is because ITALIAN is capitalized on the menu but not Snow, so maybe it’s just an «Italian.» If you’re lactose intolerant then maybe try the «SPECIAL» Iced Sparkle Tea or just take a Lactaid and live a little.
All that said, the tea is yummy, the shop is cute and spacious (for SF), and the staff is really nice. I’ve been here like four times already. I think my boyfriend would drink a whole cup of just cheese foam. I really like the Royal Ceylon milk tea with pudding and pearl.
Suggestion to the owners: Do drink specials for people with ADHD who can’t read your menu. So they can just point at the board and be like, yeah I’ll just try that I guess. (Like how ShareTea just has a bunch of pictures of drinks up). I guess I can only speak for myself, but I know I’d just randomly try whatever the drink of the day was.
Last but not least, @ The girl who posted outrage that her Matcha was made from powder – I hate to break it to you, since powder apparently gives your cousin mud butt or whatever. But Matcha literally means powdered tea.

First time I came here I got the avocado snow and it was more milky and wasn’t sweet! Second time I came here I got the jasmine milk tea with puff cream and it was way better! Overall I’m glad that they opened this store near my house! A lot of seats on the inside! Pretty pricey for the drinks but the size is pretty big so it balances it out I guess (:

I saw this place from the outside since their grand opening. I didn’t know what to think, so I went inside & ordered their 5-​piece fried chickens. They were very small chicken bird size and it didn’t really have that greasy fried to it. I’m convinced. I’ll go for other items next time around. It’s kind of a spin-​off on the coffee shop scene, but one thing that really stands out is the door attached to the wall that leads to nowhere (that I know of). I love original ideas like this. The wall is painted with cheerful notes, but that door on the wall is absolutely artsy.

I am Matcha lover and after read many review that I should try Match Latte with puff cream so I can’t wait to try it. Today I went to HiTea and I think I wait around 5 minute for the staff. They all in the kitchen I don’t know what are they doing. I oredered Matcha Latte with puff cream. The taste is OK not bad but not that good. I didn’t taste the flavor or puff cream so I dont know what it is taste like. Eveything taste blend all together and as I said «ok but not bad» but very difficult to explain the taste of this drink when my friend asked me. Now I am feeling sick with my stomach.

I absolutely love the Matcha Latte with Puff Cream. I’ve had it twice and the puff cream does add a bit of sweetness to the drink so recommend trying it out with 50% sweetness. The puff cream makes the drink really smooth and creamy.
The café itself is super cute. Love the Koala décor! Drinks run about $ 4, decently priced for good boba.

Finally a decent boba place in Chinatown. I’ve always had to drive out to Richmond or Sunset for a modern boba with all my comforting amenities, but HiTea makes it a lot easier!
No more standing in 15 min lines at Boba Guys (subpar btw), No more having to pay extra for no ice option at Sharetea in Meteron.
Thank you Hi Tea!
UjiMatcha with pearl no ice please!!!
One thing: close later please :)

Ehhh don’t know what so say.
Cashier lacks English, had to speak to them in Cantonese but they still messed up my order. Wanted to order their strawberry tea tonic but ended up with a strawberry icce, which was basically just a strawberry Italian soda.
The BF ordered a roasted oolong crema, that tastes way better than mine but it wasn’t amazing. I ended up throwing my drink away ¹⁄₅ into my drink cuz it was not crackin…
Would not come back again. They do however have a big seating area so if you want to study here, I see it being a good study spot!

I know this place because a family friend helped renovated on it.
It’s pretty cute: purple ceiling (MY FAVE COLOR), gold walls with hand painted Art Deco, it’s not Pro but good enough. Then a orange koala, just there, sitting on the tree chilling. Black wood bench, tall table with tall chairs (HEART)
I like their back room the most, cozy and relaxing however the pillows doesn’t match the painting nor the feel. It seems they’re still finishing, there was some tools laying around, some loose paint chips and that loose nail.
It’s a clean place, considering its new: D
Hopefully they will keep it neat, clean and clutter free and not overwhelmed their customers with 200 different drinks and food menus plaster all over their wall (don’t be a quickly)
Service was okay, there was 2 girls behind the counter, one elderly lady and a young lady, elderly lady looked at us and waited for the young girl to take our order. I don’t know what that was about.
Drink was ready within 4 minutes? they weren’t busy so why 4 minutes for ONE DRINK.
Practice makes perfect.
Ummm … Price is cheap (I think), range from $ 2.99-$ 4 (plus tax) from what I remember (didn’t really care since I wasn’t the one ordering, just wanted to seat and sneeze)
First time– 3 weeks ago, free drink– regular milk tea with some pudding like substance (later found out its puffcream) I don’t know what to think of it. Idea is original but taste was weird. Not bad weird but interesting. It was too sweet for my taste, but my cousin likes it (she’s a sugar maniac)
Second time– Earlier yesterday, Matcha milk tea with ‘PUFFCREAM’… ummm straight up powder! Cousin got the bubble guts, you know that’s not good. I stop drinking after 4 sips and she forced me to drink 3 more sips so it’s not going to a waste and she tried to finish it.
Third time– Yesterday night, went with friends after dinner, they like boba too. Ordered salted coconut milk tea, avocado milk smoothie and grapefruit black tea with lychee jelly. All 3 is a fail. Friends didn’t like it. Salted drink had no coconut taste. Avocado milk smoothie– 5% avocado and 95% milk and ice. Grapefruit Black tea– flat, watered down and why was there lotus seed inside?
Will not be purchasing my drinks here. Sorry: (
It’s located in Chinatown, soooo parking will be difficult unless you’re lucky enough to find and pay for meter or just parking garage (majority is $ 3 an hour or flat rate for $ 10/​$ 15 or personal parking lot for $ 4/​$ 5 an hour)
I gave it 3 stars because it’s a new place, clean and smelled nice. Price is cheap but for something that’s bland yeah $ 2.99 is good enough. Service is alright, could be better in time.
*whisper* there was a cute ish guy that night, I think he’s the son or sorts of the owners because they were eating all together.

Best milk tea in town ever!!! Me and my bf came by on the afternoon on a Sunday night .it was so crowed! And full of ppl in the rest area too! They have 4 comfortable table in the rest area for ppl who can sit and chill there. I remember that I order the assam milk tea with puffcream it wassssss so creamy and the milktea is just so fresh u can taste it was make with real milk but not powder!!! Highly recommend this!!! And it’s just so special and u can get it no where els but here!!! Definitely come back!!! Btw i am a milktea lover .and I had try almost every milk tea place in town and I can tell u that is the best milk tea place so far…

+1 star for the décor
+1 star for the taste of our drinks (mango slushy)
–1 star for the girl at the cashier. I failed to read the menu to add toppings… I assumed my drink included boba. I wish she would’ve asked if I wanted a topping. Her voice was really soft and it was difficult to hear her. When my BF and I got to the counter, she didn’t greet us or even smile. She made the situation worse when we waited for our change. My BF gave her cash and she failed to instantly return his change. She had the cash drawer open, register stated the amount of the change, but she didn’t take action. Weird. (The change was significant– couldn’t be considered to be a tip.)
–1 star because it took about 10 minutes to get our drink even thought it wasn’t busy.
–1 star because my BF ordered one type of drink and got another. Also, the menu has limited choices.
Their koala logo is cute, but that’s not enough to make me want to return.

When a friend of mine mentioned a new milk tea shop in Chinatown, I didn’t hesitate to find it on Unilocal and walk over to give it a try within minutes. And by minutes, it was a 12 minute walk from Union Square to the outskirts of Chinatown.
The interior is spacious and cute. It’s perfect for high schoolers to hang out and play games or study. (Just a cool story I thought I’d like to share)
What’s interesting about these drinks is that they include «Asian puff cream» in their milk teas, which give it a sweeter and a tad thicker flavor (like sea salt crema) than most places. However, unless you have a sweet tooth, you will most likely have to cut down on the sugar, as the cream makes it pretty sweet already. I tried it once at 50% sugar, and again at 0% sugar. Personally, I’d probably go for 25% or 30% next time. In spite of the sweetness irregularity, I found the actual tea to be quite strong (a good thing in my book)!
They also serve food, but in terms of milk tea only, it’s an interesting concept, and I can see this place being a solid stop for milk tea in Chinatown. Not a place I would be frequenting many times, but I wouldn’t say no to another trip to HiTea.

Best boba place in the neighborhood! When you go to Chinatown, you expect a lot of good boba places, but that did not live to my expectations until last week when my friend introduced me to Hitea!
Sure, there are multiple milktea places in the neighborhood, but there is always one aspect that is missing; either one place has good drinks but no seating or it has good drinks but it;s overpriced. HiTea has it all! It has fresh brewed tea, pretty decorations and ambiance, plenty of seating, and specialty drinks that you can’t find anywhere else!
I ordered Matcha Latte with Puffcream. The puffcream tastes like custard. You have to dig your straw to the side of your cup to taste it. It is milkier than custard and isn’t overly sweet. So good! By looking at their menu, they have more specialty drinks than classic milk tea drinks where you can’t find anywhere else such as tonic drinks, italian snow, and sparkling tea.
The store is also very spacious. There are plenty of seats, couches, tables, standing and waiting area so it is the perfect place to just hang out with friends or study. The decorations are also very nice and cute.
My only complaint is that no one awknowledged me and my friend until 10 mins after we walked in. There was no line, but I guess one worker was training the other worker on how to make drinks. They didn’t seem very friendly when they look our order, but i don’t expect much service for ordering drinks anyways.
Overall, I would definitely come back. The drinks are unique and has plenty of space to sit and chat with my friends!

Love this new boba place! Definitely a solid 4 stars. They are currently running a Valentine’s Day promo– buy any 2 drinks and get 25% off your purchase! All drinks here average $ 3 – 4 dollars, which is reasonable in SF. They do not have as much drink options as other boba places around. Their menu pretty much consist of milk tea, tea (with milk foam/​puff cream), tonic drinks (carbonated), and blended drinks. You can adjust the sweetness and ice level for this place! They also use FiveStars as their reward system so don’t forget to sign in!
I opted for the White Peach Oolong tea with sea salt milk foam (50% sweet) and got to try the Passionfruit Snowy (100% sweet) as well. The bitter tea taste was apparent in my drink, which is great for tea lovers! I do prefer some sweetness for my tea though so I would go for full sweetness if you don’t really like strong tea. The drink itself along with the milk foam was great! You can definitely taste the tea taste. The Passionfruit Snowy, which is pretty much a slush with milk added, was actually really good too! They have passionfruit bits and seeds in there and wasn’t too sweet at 100% sweetness. They even have cheese foam as their option for the teas! This is my first time seeing this option at a boba place so I’m excited to try it next time. I will definitely be back for their solid tasting drinks!

3.5 stars!
I’ve been having a hard time finding decent milk tea in SF and after trying this spot today, my search continues. I ordered the jasmine green milk tea with pudding and was underwhelmed. The pudding had a firm consistency that I’m not used to and the drink itself didn’t have a fresh tea taste. On the plus side, staff was friendly and my drink came out quickly.

Time: 1:33pm/67°F sunny
Purpose: Decided to stop by for the third time. First time they weren’t ready for opening. Second time ran out of ingredients. Third and final try in an attempt to see if I can represent them.
Ambiance: A four color scheme place mostly gold, black, orange, and brown. Structural wise look like they just painted everything over in sight including a door connected to business next door. Ceiling particle board painted brown while walls are gold/​black with silhouette nature shadows. No effort was shown to cover up some of the tacky areas. Faux wooden floor strips plaster front to end. A waiting bench in front while center area with two table set up for two. Inner back mural drawing of SF iconic background along with four lounge chairs and ottomans. Self help utensil station set up next to counter bar seating. Three television seen throughout the place along with free Wi-​Fi posted password. It feels very kitschy at best.
Staff: Two ladies could pass for mother daughter duo. Younger girl speaks some english, but not perfect. No Cantonese or Mandarin was spoken. I ask another person waiting in line, and was told Taishanese was spoken. I tell you these two were work of art. Line was eight person deep without acknowledging people walking in so, they wait patiently. They’re so slow that you can go do grocery shopping be back with a bagful and still haven’t reach you yet. I cringed and started mumbling to myself. At least tell people there will be a 15+ mins wait, this way they can make plans and adjust their time accordingly.
Cleanliness: Grade A, but questionable. Some area feels dusty like the corners were the grand opening pottery plants are located. My cup wasn’t wipe down when handed over. Each swaying motion in car cupholder and droplets seep out underneath the film. Napkins, I need napkins! Who has napkins?
Eats/​Drinks: Match latte w/​puffcream $ 4.25 +taxes. This drink was really rich due to cheese milkfoam. Boba was not congealing or chalky, its texture was silky smooth and chewy too. It was cook perfectly can’t ask for more than that. Matcha wasn’t just cheapo Kirkland label slap on it. It was premium matcha powder delicately scoop straight tin can into blender. I watch on as it was being made. Lady turn around and show me the can because I inquired about it. Cheese milkfoam provided that seasalt caramel taste of sweet/​savory combo. Blind taste taste I probably won’t even know the difference. That vibrant green hue really turn head on the street. In the end, I didn’t even want to know how many calories drink contains. I’ve never felt so full from a boba drink in my lifetime of drinking them. It could be the cheese milkfoam or boba in either case, I didn’t care. All I wanted was matcha something to satisfy my cravings.
Main Features: Cheese milkfoam/​milkfoam, puffcream milktea.
Products/​Services: Full menu disclosure posted on picture.
*Off menu snacks-​Waffle/​curly/​sweet potato/​french fries, chicken wings, cheese sticks, garlic bread, HK style waffle. Free Wi-​Fi, 5-​star rewards, coffee by Don Pablo, CNY special-​1 free topping (ends February 20^th), ice/​sweetness level choice, available hot/​cold, toppings extra $.50-.75 depending on choice.
Punch Lines: Newly open, seats are minimal, well made, long wait time, taxes apply toward listed prices, television, not too engaging, pleasing flavors, better than average, laid back, casual, kitschy décor, light bites, hip crowd, can’t go wrong, worth the wait, struggling service during peak hours, satisfactory.
Tradeoffs: Cheese milkfoam is offer to differentiate itself from other nearby shops. Worth every penny if your drink required cheese milkfoam.
Final Thoughts: In the beginning, I was excited of milkfoam boba being made and offer. Many shop of similar offerings consider it to be time consuming. However, this was my first time having cheese milkfoam, so I didn’t even know what I was about to have myself. There was only one place I always go for boba (i-​tea), but now, I’m adding HiTea to list only because of cheese milkfoam. It’s really not a bad place despite waiting in searing sun rays, longer than usual wait time, adhesive not sealing properly for a chance at milkfoam. Come if you want a rich calorie laden drink without thinking about being healthy.

I was in SF and walking around ChinaTown with a friend, when we passed this place. Not sure why, but somehow the name caught us, although we didn’t initally go in because we were still being touristy and walking around. This store is actually located just outside ChinaTown, and we happened to pass by it a second time and decided to go in. I thought the place looked super clean and new, so I checked it out on Unilocal,and yup, only a few reviews, so I guess this place just recently opened.
Their menu is not extensive like other places, but they seem to focus more on their teas. At the top of the menu there was a section of drinks that all included milk puff, and when I asked about it, the cashier had a hard time explaining. She basically said that it was similar to the salted cream you can get on top of drinks except it’s sweet, and it goes on the bottom on their cups. I was intrigued since I’ve never heard of this kind of topping before, so I decided to go with the Matcha Latte with Milk Puff with pearls. My friend is lactose, so she was browsing through their tea options and settled on the Cherry Blossom Green Tea.
The wait for the drinks took a little bit longer than expected, but I was okay with that because I noticed that for my friend’s tea, it was fresh brewed, so that was a pleasant surprise. The total wait time I think took about 15 minutes, which might not sound like long, but at the time, we were the only customers in the store, so they could work on efficiency a bit. Drinks are sealed, which is nice, and the cup and decoartion on the seal is quite cute as well. Purely aesthetic, but hey it doesn’t hurt to have a pretty cup to drink from haha.
First sip of my drink, the matcha latte is pretty much what you’d expect and not too sweet, so that was nice, but I had to sort of dig my straw into the Milk Puff to get a taste of it. Oh boyyyyyy, this is some pretty good stuff. A bit hard to explain, since I feel like this topping might be unique to this place. It’s a bit creamy with a slight sort of custard taste and sweetness, and it is like, so I guess that’s why they chose to name it Milk Puff. Not sure if this is some new topping from Asia, but I’m sold on it. The pearls however could use some work. They had a slight firm texture, which I like, but they kind of didn’t have any flavor to them. My friend’s Cherry Blossom Tea was extremely floral and fragrant. The flavor was wonderful, and I think she got it at 50% sweetness, so the bitterness of the tea came through, but it wasn’t overbearing.
Overall, I definitely enjoyed my experience here. My friend and I already discussed coming back sometime even though we’re in South Bay, so SF is kind of a drive, but the drinks were great. They also have a cheese milk foam that is also quite intriguing, so I’ll have to give it a try next time. I would have given 5 stars, except the workers weren’t too great an English, so there were some difficulties when ordering, and initially, my drink didn’t have pearl in it, so I had to ask them to remake it, even though I had already waited like 15 minutes, so –1 star for that. But if you’re in the area, you should definitely check them out, and try one of their yummy fresh brewed teas, or something with milk puff!

stopped by just because it was on the path to where I was going, but have you ever had one of those places that are just hidden treasures? well this is one of them! I had one of my favs from every place I can find it «green apple slush» not alot of places can get it right but this one? perfection! plus it was suuuuuper busy but didn’t wait to long and the staff was super awesome full of smiles and the hand painted deco is ill! I’m most definitely going back… great not I want one :/​haha

We ended up here coming back from a show on a Sunday afternoon since our parking lot was right next to it. There were a fair amount of patrons, but the line/​wait went quickly. It looks like it just opened, so it was nice to see so many plants (are they for luck?) and the décor was pretty interesting, though hard to describe.
Our tea was. .. lackluster. It didn’t really have much flavor unfortunately. Maybe I needed to specify? I ordered just a regular black milk tea with boba and my husband order something with lemon in it. Our boba was gooey and fresh though.
Would be come here again? Maybe. Perhaps they just need some time to iron out some kinks and get some flavor going.
*Standard service.
**Not cheap.