Jasmine Green Milk Tea – Loose Leaf Boba Company

My dad’s favorite boba place, Loose Leaf Boba Company, recently opened up a location close to where I live! Now instead of driving to Long Beach (which isn’t that bad I guess, but still quite some time) there’s a location in Santa Ana. Well, they’re still in their soft opening stage right now, which began yesterday, but it’s kind of the same thing right? Today is also a pretty hot day, which is a great occasion for boba!

I had a bit of a hard time deciding what to get today because I know Loose Leaf has such great tea quality and there were so many appealing tea options! At first, I was going to go for the Original Milk Tea, because that was my favorite out of the drinks I’ve tried at their original Long Beach location, and you can never go wrong with a basic milk tea you know that’s good. Then I started considering the Chrysanthemum Tea with milk, because I haven’t had a Chrysanthemum tea, milk or not, in a while since I last hung out with my friend in college, but I decided that if we ever get Loose Leaf again, I’ll get the Chrysanthemum to be slightly more adventurous. Who knows, maybe I’ll get a different tea on their menu…

Anyways, spoiler alert, I opted for the Jasmine Green Tea as a milk tea today. I wanted to try something new from Loose Leaf, putting my faith in them, but also go for a classic milk tea. What better way to combine those thoughts than a Jasmine Milk Tea?

The drink itself is so good! The Jasmine Green Tea flavor still comes out strong even as a milk tea, and it’s a really refreshing drink. They definitely have their teas on point, and this is on par with the better Jasmine Teas I’ve had.

Unfortunately, I guess soft openings can’t be perfect, because the boba is not good today. This is also sad because I had such high expectations since the boba at the original Long Beach location raises the standard for boba so much, with how chewy and sweet the boba was (it’s my dad’s favorite for a reason). Today’s though, the boba is not chewy at all, it’s quite hard, not sweet, and small. It could definitely be cooked longer. I’m hoping this is just a soft opening kink that needs to be worked out, because there’s so much potential. They did give quite a bit of boba though, so I guess that’s a plus. On the other hand, it kind of sucks to keep eating boba when it’s not that great…and my drink is disappearing fast…

Oh, and I had a few sips of my sister’s Purple Roots drink, which is supposed to be an ube and taro smoothie, but I heard that they can’t get ube shipments because of covid, so it’s just taro for now. My sister has been ordering or trying taro drinks more recently, but unfortunately, she didn’t like this one. Maybe it was too real taro-y for her. I’m not sure if it had 100% or 50% sugar because it was actually a little sweet for my tastes, but I thought it was pretty good! I haven’t gotten taro drinks in years (more on that later?) other than a sip here and there from what my sis is getting recently, but I was pleasantly surprised by this drink. I’d actually order it.

Details: Jasmine Green Tea; with organic milk; Half Sugar; No ice; with honey boba; from Loose Leaf Boba Company (Santa Ana)