Chatime: Shaking Tea Up

Before any milk tea shop you can name, there was already Chatime. It was one of the pioneering Taiwanese milk tea brands that set foot in our country. It was 2011 if I’m not mistaken. With milk teas, fruit teas and refreshers on its menu, Chatime is still one of the leading milk tea shops in the Philippines for almost a decade now. Wow! With this, let me share my usual Chatime picks.

You’ll notice that most of my orders are in paper cups. It’s because I usually buy my Chatime drink at SLEX Shell, which is located at Laguna. It’s our habitual stopover when we are travelling from Mindoro to Manila. We usually leave Mindoro at ten in the evening to avoid the traffic. And during the midnight, Chatime in SLEX Shell is the only milk tea shop that is open for 24 hours along the way. We never miss a trip without stopping by Chatime. Anyway, I believe that there is already a plastic-free ordinance in the province hence the paper cups. You can’t see what’s inside but believe me, my orders below are different.

Thai Milk Tea

Chatime’s Thai Milk Tea is famous in the country’s milk tea industry. Their staff said that they put a special mix of milk into it making their Thai Milk Tea stand out among the rest. At first sip, I could easily recognize the milk he is saying. It’s absolutely creamy. Personally, I don’t like the flavor of Thai Milk But but Chatime make me like it. I picked pearls as my sinkers but after searching, I found out that sticky rice best fits their Thai Milk Tea. I should’ve tried that!

Banana Milk Tea

I was so curious about its taste because I haven’t tried or even seen a banana-flavored milk tea before except Chatime. Yep! This is milk tea and not fruit tea. I knew I had to try this weird fusion of flavors and amazingly, they nailed it! I can feel the fruity flavor of the banana and the creaminess of the milk. Although I can’t recognize the tea in it, I felt that it’s just there balancing the sweetness of the two ingredients.

Matcha Latte

So when we say Matcha Latte, I understand it as a matcha tea with milk. I wonder how it is different to milk tea. Anyway, I feel like this has lots of milk although I could sense the intense flavors of matcha. Even the color says that it is milkier since it is white and not green. At a hundred percent sugar, it’s not sweet enough for my taste. I don’t think that matcha is included in Chatime’s strengths.

Chocolate Mousse

It’s basically a chocolate milk tea with salty cream froth on top. For me, the chocolate drink itself is kinda bland maybe because the tea is strong and dominating. When it comes to their base milk tea, I realized that they really make their milk teas with stronger tea flavors and that’s perfectly fine. I appreciated it more at the end because that’s where I got the taste of mousse. Speaking of chocolate, I also tried their Superior Pure Cocoa, which is sweeter.

Passionfruit Fruit Green Tea

I’m glad that they let us choose between green and black tea for their fruit teas. I picked green tea because I think, it will best fit passionfruit and mango. For both, the flavors of the fruit is there but like most of their drinks, the tea is dominating. The passionfruit flavor they used is kinda tangy. I liked the mango more because the combination of it and green tea just bloomed in my taste buds. If you do not like sweet fruit teas, you must try Chatime’s.

Grapefruit QQ

Since there are two grapefruit in the menu, I assume that the Grapefuit Fruit Tea has green tea while the Grapefruit under refresher section has no tea in it. I realized that they also provide good non-tea drinks. At first, I thought it’s lemonade because it’s kinda tangy. But it just perfectly gives the sweetness and sourness of a grapefruit. I’m thankful they added it pearl and nata because the sweet sinkers eased the tanginess of the juice.

Marble Pearl Fresh Milk

Since Chatime in SLEX Shell serves milk tea in paper cups, I couldn’t see how much brown sugar they put in here, assuming that this is their version of brown sugar milk famous in taiwan. I could only visualize it through taste. And for me, it’s just a plain milk made sweeter. It has no special effects from the brown sugar. However, I appreciate the pearls because they blended well with the flavors.

Cream Cheese Cookie

So this is their take to Macao Imperial Tea’s Oreo Cream Cheese. Although I’m biased to Macao Imperial since it’s my fave, I must say that this also incredible. I actually think they are different. In Macao Imperial Tea, it is a cookies and cream milk tea with cream cheese. In Chatime, it features their classic milk tea with oreo bits and cream cheese. We love their classic milk tea and we can taste it here. Their cream cheese alone has rough texture yet very yummy.