Chatime

Location: 110, Taipei City, Xinyi District, City Hall Rd, 45號B1

Boba Taiwan Grading (BTG): 71.4/100

Number of Stores: 3500+ (International)

Price of the Boba Tea: 55 TWD

Order: Boba Milk Tea, Regular Sugar Levels, Regular Ice Levels

Overview: Chatime was founded in 2005 in Taiwan and opened its first international branch in 2006 (California), growing into the largest bubble tea chain in the world with over 3500 outlets. The Chatime pearls are incredible and chewy, while the tea is sweet and watery. Overall, Chatime is between a mediocre and decent place to go.

Boba Taiwan Grading Overview:

Quality of the Boba Tea (QBT): 60.4/80

Quality of the Pearl: 33.2/40

• Chewiness: 8/10 - The pearl is very chewy, requiring around four to five chews to fully digest in the mouth.

• Hard/softness: 8/10 - The pearls are just right hard/soft, if only slightly too hard.

• Relative size: 2.3/2.5 - The pearls are only slightly too big.

• Amount of Pearl (relative to Volume of Drink): 1.9/2.5 - There was too much tea and too few pearls in the drink.

• Lumpiness: 5/5 - There were no lumps of pearls that made a jam in the straw, which resulted in full points.

• Taste (or sweetness level): 3.5/5 - The pearl's aftertaste and taste are undetectable and almost non-existent.

• Spherical quality and perfection (of pearl): 4.5/5 - The pearls are consistently round and chewy throughout the drink.

Quality of Tea: 27.2/40

• Sweetness: 6/10 - There is too much sugar in the drink; slightly enjoyable.

• Milkiness: 5.7/10 - There is very little milk detectable in the tea, overpowered by the sugar.

• Concentration of tea: 6/10 - There is a lot of tea detectable in the drink.

• Aftertaste: 4/5 - The aftertaste of the tea is enjoyable and sugary; disappears quickly.

• Wateriness: 5.5/10 - There is too much water in the drink.

Quality of the Shop (QS): 11/20

• Delivery Speed: 2.9/5 - The delivery speed was slower than average with many customers (around 3 minutes)

• Quality of Store: 3.3/5 - The quality of the store was large and spacious in the expensive Taipei 101 Shopping Mall.

• Quality of Service: 2.5/5 - The waiters were not extremely friendly, nor professional, but gave the cash and receipt in an unprofessional manner, and the pick-up of the drinks was unprofessional as well.

• Quality of Utensils: 2.3/5 - The utensils used were substandard. The materials used for the cup were plasticky and mediocre. The way the straw entered the cup was not clean, requiring many attempts to enter the wrapping. The straw was made of paper.