Tea Lover

Made numerous attempts to come but this place seems to be always closed even during the day. I have made many attempts to come try this place during the day and night. I assume the owners of this place does not want customers. Never seen a good tapioca place in the Richmond that satisfied me.

I wrote my original review yesterday. I tried going after work. Got there at 5:30pm, CLOSED.
What gives yo?
No signs. Are you out of business?

I will not doubt that they love their tea, but I will doubt their abilities on how they make it.
When I can see the seperation between milk powder and tea and sugar syrup in my drink than I know its not going to be good going down. Please learn how to mix your drink or better yet, don;t use milk powder. The seperation is not a good look.
Well at least the guy working was very polite and nice.

I am a tea lover, but here. I’m a tea hater ! :(
As i walk in, there is not much to the this place so i thought hey, cheap tapioca — cool. but Nope, their just holding off because it’s still $ 3 for powdered tea — a big no no.
Don’t list fresh tea, when it ain’t or if you do have ONE fresh tea drink — you might want to specify a little better. Along with specifics, lets get into the gritty:
There’s a wall menu that lists the drink flavors but no price. Okay, so I ask the guy how much are the drinks and he points at the TV screen. Too bad it’s on screensaver so that is completely useless to me and when I told him it didn’t show the price, he said yeah okay (I don’t think he understood very much English or T Pain — Apple Bottom Jeans was blaring out of the speakers too loud!). Anyways, I felt bad because I was already there and curious — too bad I should’ve Unilocaled this first! — I decided why not just order since it’s «fresh» tea. can’t really go wrong because i love milk tea.
Place my order &ITS POWDERED! Sorry, if i wanted powdered tea, I’d go Quickly’s.
Caramel Milk Tea — it’s sweet. It’s alright — decent.
Roasted Milk Tea — it was standard but after I tried the overly sweet caramel, it drank this again, it tasted like drinking wet rag juice!!! Ahhhh. can you imagine how horrified I am at this point?!
Seriously, I hardly ever write a bad review. BUT their plastic seals really ticked me off. I ordered two drinks: the first one — lid didn’t seal properly (again, giving the benefit of the doubt, I thought maybe it’s just a bad day for the machine), he switches the cup and makes sure it’s sealed. Next cup — he attempts to make sure that it’s sealed — taps the cup for reassurance.
I leave and get to my car. the lid of the second drink pops a little peep! AND THEN, when i arrive home, before I can puncture my straw into the lid of the caramel milk tea — the lid popped open more and spills all over the carpet!
At this point, I don’t know what i despise more — when the lid is sealed too hot and your drink taste like plastic or if your lid is not sealed properly and your carpet becomes a sponge…
signing off and stick with REAL tea loving, less problematic, and non false accusations
PS. your balls were hard and chewy! hmph!

Ooh didn’t know I didn’t review this one yet.
Hehe. I will go back, you know why? Because so far, this is the best boba tea I’ve had in San Francisco. I admit, I haven’t been to very many but the one I remember specifically, sucked. So… (: Automatically this one is 100% better.
I got the jasmine milk tea with pearls which were just the right amount of sweet (especially after a delicious meal several blocks down, at Lou’s). The pearls were extra chewy so maybe a little overwhelming for after a meal, but they were delish!
Yumyumyum.
Will be back real sooooon.

Came back again and got a stamp card. I guess they revised it from buy 10 drinks get 1 free to. buy 5 get 1 free? o_​o
The prices are still a bit more expensive but the tapioca milk tea itself is good.
The tapioca balls are just the right consistency and the cashier guy was pretty nice.

He ain’t no Tea Lover!
I came here with my girlfriend the other day while taking a stroll in the Inner Richmond. I’ve driven by Tea Lover a few times and kept wondering if it was just going to be ANOTHER mediocre Quickly’s, a Teaway clone, or ridiculously enormous Purple Kow cup size joint. Whatever it may be, I was here to check it out.
Taro Milk Tea (added Tapioca and Pop Bombs) —
The taro milk tea tasted a tad watered down, most likely powdered anyways (I like my taro strong!). The tapioca on the other hand was nice, firm, and chewy which was great. As for the «pop bombs», this was my first time having them. A burst of various fruit juices when you «pop» them but it doesn’t blend well with taro, no biggie.
Roasted Milk Tea with Pearl Boba —
An actual milk tea drink that has that «roasted tea» taste, along with your standard amount of large tapioca balls. It wasn’t too much to rave about: good, but not the best I’ve had.
ALRIGHT, so the drinks are all fine and dandy, but it’s the SERVICE that left a bad taste in both our mouths. When we walked in, the employee working the shop was blasting his Parental Advisory Explicit tunes and fixated on the computer monitor. I’m not one to bash on someone’s genre of music but is that really suitable when your freakin’ located right next to an Elementary school? Whatever, I’m not the boss here.
Anyways, when I was picking out which drink I wanted, I had a question regarding the «Pop Bombs». What’s a Pop Bomb? The employee once again, fixated at whatever he was doing on the computer, just pointed to the poster of Pop Bombs. What the hell is a poster going to tell of your product, especially if it’s just a picture of the pop bombs with unreadable characters like a poster you’ll see at Quickly’s. whatever, I guess I’ll just have to try it for myself.
So finally, as the one employee prepared our drinks one at a time, my girlfriend noticed that a gust of wind (it maybe sunny but it’s still San Francisco) was slowly tearing the place apart; mainly causing the napkins to fly everywhere. As my girlfriend’s drink was made, she kindly picked up all the blown napkins and flyers off the floor for the employee and said, «here you go. your napkins are flying everywhere.» while the employee responded with a *well-no-f*cking-sh!t”-smug and replied, «yeah… I know…»
Bro. my girlfriend was only trying to help YOU out while you were doing such an astounding apathetic service to your other patrons. I hope your not the owner of this shop because that would be appalling. Why work at a job you hate? I’m sorry but you can have your frequent buyer card back. I’m a little disappointing too because a «Buy-​5-​Get-​1 Free» visitor card is pretty killer.

Tea Lover’s a tiny hole in the water milk tea place. They are still pretty new in a neighborhood filled with milk tea places. What they give is the standard issue stuff with no thrills. They doesn’t seem to be any food so thy have only milk ta and flavored juice drinks with pop boba. There’s a few seats for you to sit down inside. The cool part about the store is they have a glass wall that’s filled with scribbles that people write and draw on it. This is the unique thing about the place.
I ordered the jasmine milk tea and it tasted fine to me. There wasn’t anything special about it, but it was okay in my book.

Definitely a step in the right direction. Currently their strengths are in the straight up milk teas (jasmine, black)…really nicely made, and sweetness up to your preference. If they happen to notice the majority of their customers ordering «lightly sweet» like I do, I hope they’ll take all of their drinks in that direction. When it comes to flavorings there seem to be the usual array of pre-​mixed products, but it doesn’t stop them from putting out tasty drinks. They have a strong base, and as long as they keep wanting to get better, they could very well bring something new to the boba tea world. Even if they don’t…they’ll still have a nice, reliable spot with solid, basic, sweet tea drinks.
With the flavored drinks, they tend toward the saccharine, but you can still find some fun there too. I just had the mango juice with pomelo and seaweed balls (agar jelly balls), and while the mago juice is definitely more like dried mango (i.e. packaged) vs the fresh mango juices you can get seasonally at many local shops, it’s a pretty interesting mix of textures along with bitter, sour and sweet. I’ve also tried the peach «juice» with pop bomb (alginate spherifications)…definitely candy in liquid form. Better still is the Hokkaido Green milk tea… again a little sweet for me, but it’s a fun flavor. Sure, I’d find it hard to believe that this drink has anything to do with actual Hokkaido milk any more than Carlo Rossi’s hearty burgundy has anything to do with Clos de Vougeot, but still, it’s a fun diversion.
Okay, so maybe I have dreams of a «third wave» style boba tea shop minus the snoot… I can see it now, fun varietals of tea, really nice local milk, care put into hand brewing and shaking (bye bye shaking and sealing machine!), a few choices in natural sweeteners, decent glassware instead of plastic or ikea… but yeah, since the «serious» tea shops seem to stop short of that idea and the boba centric shops tend to be mainly candy peddlers, I can be happy that Tea Lover is doing what it’s doing at the moment.
Compares favorably to Wonderful Foods Co, and I definitely prefer it to the chain boba places…

As many people have mentioned, this place is a simple milk tea place that solely focuses on serving different types of milk tea. I ordered the roasted milk tea and if you have ever had fantasia in south bay, it tasted very similar to it. It’s not a bad boba place at all and I enjoyed how the tea was strongly brewed and not watered down.
The boba was chewy and had flavor in it but I wish they put less boba in my drink. ¼ of the cup was filled with boba so i was not able to enjoy the milk tea aspect of it as much.
Finally another place in SF that has good boba since I have not been able to find many specifically in the city

Tea Lover is a no thrills tea/​milk tea/​milk shakes/​fruit juice hole in the wall dispensary. no pricing noticed. few seats available.
drink: jasmine tea, no boba (2.71)
–little ice as requested. also no sugar needed
–jasmine tea a little bitter but full flavored.
–came out of a dispensar, not refrigerator
–average sized drink
tea drips:
–store seems to close in the afternoon.
–efficient, bilinguql service.
–menu takes getting used to, no the usual…

This place is not bad.
The guy who was working alone did great job. Good service.
I have only tried milk tea and matcha and both were pretty good. But too bad most of their drinks are powder and syrup based.
Definitely a good addition to the neighborhood!

Still too new. The place is small and it doesn’t look equip enough to handle a large crowd. They have a few specialty drinks while they are still searching for their «thing» to promote. It has protential, but it depends on where they take it.
I ordered the Sweet Purple Potato Milkshake and it has an unexpected taste. Not quite sweet purple and not nasty either. It was alright, but maybe they want to name it something else. We’ll see how this place flies in a couple of months.

I love it!
Ordered the Roasted Milk Tea with Tapioca and omgoodness was it a perfect medley of smooth, not too sweet roasty flavored milk and the perfect chewiness of the tapioca balls. Of course, I probably will assume the drinks are powder based.
My friend…
Ordered some sort of strawberry juice/​syrup drink with pop bomb (balls filled with sour juice) and liked it.
The place is very small with only chairs for seating and of course being on Clement Street, it does feel a bit dirty especially the floors. The customer service however was excellent!
Nice cashier dude with an accent — «Have a wonderful evening!»

I love tea lover! Order jasmine milk tea (no.6) with grass jelly! It’s my favorite so far! This place would not disappoint you. The have great hongkong milk tea with different flavors, great service and a reasonable price for boba. Tea lover is also hygiene and comfortable to be in. The have a simple menu with pictures, in both English and Chinese! I highly recommend this place, especially if you’re thirsty for some milk tea!
Also, they are having a promotion right now! I just bought a drink earlier and they gave me a coupon that enables me to get one free drink after buying 5. I’m definitely going back there again! :)

Great Milk Tea’s! Its not powder and different then your average tapioca drinks.
Sidenote to Crystal P: Seems like your rating of 2 Stars is more towards the «dirty» clement street rather than the Tea Lover shop. Maybe you should be reviewing Clement street rather than tea lover. If you want more selection go to quickly’s, if you want good milk tea go to Tea Lover.

A cute little place just for boba!
Their menu is quite limited but they have the basics and some unique ones.
I ordered the green tea/​matcha type drink. I felt like it had WAY to much creamer in it, but after a while it was quite yummy. The flavor of the green tea was very strong. My sister ordered the roasted milk tea, it had a little smokey flavor to it.
Over all this place is okay. They make the drinks when people order it and they have a mechanical thing that shakes and mixes the drinks.

Oh how the little things go a long way!
I was skeptical at first; another boba store just opened on Clement. How long will they last with Genki’s and Quickly just a short distance away? That in mind, I hesitantly spent three bucks on Black Milk tea boba but boy was I happy with my investment. Tea Lover’s tea is PHENOMENAL!!! This is not the type of joint that makes their milk tea out of artificial powders and syrups, this is like the REAL DEAL tea based drink!
The black milk tea (which was surprisingly white) was really fragrant with a subtle sweetness. The boba itself (tapioca pearls) had it’s own sweet flavor, complementing each sip with a delicate and enjoyable chew.
A lot of boba places i’ve been to don’t spend the time flavoring the boba balls, which really boosts the quality and flavor of the drink. Also, they have a tea shaking machine that shakes your drink into a frothy concoction. I haven’t seen one of those since I was a little girl so I was extremely excited!
I was super happy with my order that I came back in a few minutes to try other flavors:
+Matcha green tea: Quite starchy, minute amount of sweetness.
+Jasmine Milk Tea: Not as fragrant, creamier consistency
Yes, this is a teeny weeny store with limited seating. Yes, their menu may be small. But these drinks really pack a punch on your tastebuds and will send them on a trip to mars and back!

It’s nice to see new pearl tea places opening. Tea Lover has 2 dozen Asian drinks (milk tea, milk shakes and fruit juice with popping boba) and no snacks. There are three brewed tea bases — black, green and oolong. Instead of condensed milk, they use powdered creamer. I also saw various syrups and powders and didn’t see fresh fruit. There were some interesting, more unusual drinks like sweet potato milk shakes, Hokkaido milk tea, taro milk tea and grass jelly milk tea. Drinks are $ 2.50 and $ 2.99, with the option of adding red beans, jellies, tapioca pearls, etc.
* Jasmine milk tea (#6): quite creamy/​milky with noticeable tea taste, sweet but not too sweet (I might ask for it a little less sweet next time), not too much ice, nice, fresh, soft chewy pearls
They call popping boba «pop bomb.»
Cash only, bonus card available.

Tea Lover has recently changed my perception of milk teas. I was never into the whole bubble tea of Quickly drinks — it was all so overhyped because I honestly think it tastes like water+sugar every time. My friends were raving about this new milk tea place on Clement that had just opened a week ago, claiming that it was a lot more flavorful and that the drinks had more quality and freshness.
Tea Lover can’t be compared to Quickly because it’s a totally different experience the moment you walk in. The décor is clean, fresh, and modern. The menu is not overwhelming, but rather simple and easy to see and order. Not only do they actually have PICTURES of what the drinks look like, they even have levels of sweetness! You can choose little to extra sweet — definitely a great feature of Tea Lover. I ordered the Matcha Milk Tea, and asked for little sweetness. The way Tea Lover prepares their drinks are also very unique — they have this crazy looking machine that slowly shakes and evenly mixes the drinks. You have to see it for yourself. My Matcha Milk tea was surprisingly fresh and so delicious! No sugar overload — a plus for my taste buds and it tasted like how it should be — like actual matcha.
Tea Lover is going to be a hit. They definitely are taking a new approach to milk teas — a drink and experience incomparable to any other!