Winter Melon Green Milk Tea – Tastea

Sometime last week I signed up on the Tastea rewards app because I saw a code for a free drink online, and I thought I could save the coupon for a time when I want to try Tastea in the future. Little did I know at the time that the coupon would have an expiration date for two weeks later. If I had known that, I would have just saved the code somewhere in my notes to use at a later time. I wasn’t going to let a free drink go to waste, so because the coupon was going to expire this coming Wednesday, I figured I should use it over the weekend, and today is the hottest day this week anyway, which makes for a perfect occasion to get a drink!

Usually when I try out a new place I go for a basic milk tea of some kind, like a black, green, or Thai tea because it helps to get of sense of quality as well as you really can’t go wrong with those! I did hear that Tastea is more known for their fruit teas though, which did sound really good from their menu (which is huge by the way). They did release this winter melon series a few months ago, so it is a new (and supposedly good) collection of menu items, and it did intrigue me. I’m a big fan of winter melon tea, but I’ve never had it at a boba place, probably because I didn’t see it or I just didn’t think of trying new things before. Nevertheless, I decided to step out of my new-place-comfort-zone and went for something interesting! I did go for the option with Jasmine green tea in it to make it more interesting, and to see how it would taste with the added tea flavor.

I also ordered from the app, which didn’t have an ice level option (even though on yelp picture they did have options in store?), so I put down the no ice in the extra comments section. I’m not sure if the tape-over-the-straw-hole started because of quarantine or not, but regardless, that’s a cool idea and I appreciate that!

The drink itself is very nice, and I was pleasantly surprised by the quality. Flavor wise, I’m not sure if it was because I haven’t had winter melon tea in a while to remember the taste, but I feel like I mostly taste Jasmine tea, which is super fragrant, and a hint of something else if I look for it, probably the winter melon tea. I do think the overall flavor is deeper than a normal Jasmine milk tea, so perhaps I should stop overanalyzing it and appreciate the drink, ha! Maybe I should get the plain winter melon milk tea sometime for comparison. In any case, I’ll definitely be back to try the other drinks!

Their boba is pretty good! If you can get around the fact that they use green food coloring to make their boba green (I think some places use black coloring to make their boba extra black), then I think it’s some solid boba. The texture is really nice with how chewy and soft it is, and the honey boba does have a sweetness to it. I feel like if I chew it for too long then there’s some kind of aftertaste, or is it just me overthinking it?

As a side note, I did opt for the 32 oz because I like having large drinks, but I may have underestimated the amount of 32 oz. It does look, and feel, huge, but I definitely have no problem finishing it. It does make me feel a bit guilty though, so I think I’ll take an extra walk. That’s how this works right?

Details: Winter Melon Green Milk Tea; with honey boba; 32 oz; non-dairy creamer (default); medium sweet; asked for no ice; from Tastea (Irvine)