In September Chatime, which is the number 1 bubble tea shop in the world with over 800 stores worldwide opened in Ottawa’s Chinatown. The Taiwanese franchise is famous for its milk tea and other tapioca drinks but offers a wide range of selection of tea, fruit or coffee-based beverages in addition to desserts.
The new Chatime location is sleek and modern, with glossy white tables that reflect the purple “good tea. good time” neon sign casting everything in the store with a slight purple tone. I absolutely loved the interior space which is the nicest bubble tea shop I’ve ever been too.
When ordering at Chatime there is a massive selection of beverages to pick between that the choice is almost overwhelming. For example, there are 26 different milk tea drinks, 14 fruity tea drinks either with black or green tea, 11 brewed teas, 7 mousse drinks, 5 tea lattes, 10 QQ jelly drinks that contain pearl and coconut jelly, 15 slush drinks, 9 health drinks, plus a variety of different coffees and lattes.
To further customize your beverage you can add toppings like pudding, malt, coffee jelly, aloe vera, red bean, coconut jelly, grass jelly or pearl, specify how much ice or sugar you want, and in some drinks even the temperature. Needless to say with all the selection you will certainly always find a new beverage to try when you visit.
Unable to pick one drink, my friend and I decided to order 4 drinks and sample them all. We tried the starry lemon which just looks spectacular going from a deep purple to blue and finally to a light yellow it looks like a sky at night. The drink is a very refreshing lemon drink that is slightly tart which is perfect if you are looking for a refreshing drink. For the second drink, we had Chatime’s signature milk tea with pearls which are the classic slightly sweet delicious milk tea you might expect. For the last two drinks, we shared the mango slush which was a blended ice drink which tasted of fresh mangos and is something you can picture drinking on a beach, and finally, the matcha latte which was cold matcha drink served over ice and was my favourite out of the 4 drinks.
Equally impressive is the desserts, there is a variety of macarons including some made with tea, and a variety of Asian desserts like crepe cakes, Japanese cheesecake, and other matcha or sesame sweet cakes. Everything looked spectacular but I decided to opt for the macarons, which were delicious.
If you are looking for a fun place to get some tea drinks and perhaps some desserts with friends you need to visit Chatime the next time you are in Chinatown.