Cha for Tea (University Center – near UCI)
4187 Campus Drive, M-173, Irvine, CA 92612
(949) 725-0300 *Phone Orders Available.
OPEN 10AM-1AM DAILY
cha For Tea - Tea House and Restaurant
As a writer and a blogger, I’m always looking for new places to hang out and work on my laptop. After writing at Peet’s Coffee and Tea until about 10-ish PM, I pack my backpack and walk over to cha For Tea. This place is great! Here’s what an evening at cha For Tea feels like… I walk into the well lit threshold of cha For Tea. There is usually a group of young UCI
Pork Sausage witih Rice
(University of California at Irvine) college students hanging out near the front. Before I can get all the way inside I am greeted by the busy yet friendly staff with a, “Hi! Welcome to cha!” After entering a few steps into the store I am stopped by a smiling worker with a tray of food and beverage samples. She usually asks me if I’ve tried the California Green Tea or the veggie dumplings (I bet those dumplings would taste good with Trader Ming’s Gyoza Dipping Sauce). Cha for tea has a medium sized selection of food items that includes teriyaki chicken and pork sausage. I haven’t tried many of the entrees because it is usually so late when I get at cha For Tea, so I usually just try some samples. After tasting the crispy chicken, and the mango green tea, I proceed over to the registers to take my order. I really like the sweet butter toast at cha For Tea. It comes in a square and it tastes like the butter almost has a vanilla flavor to it. It is quite good and it accents a hot tea like unsweetened King’s Tea quite well. You can order your drinks to have boba. Boba is often called “pearls” and it is a type of gummy, chewy sweet round thing that tastes good in tea beverages. The boba, or pearls, add significant texture to any drink and they require a bigger straw. These pearls can really fill you up and turn a drink into a meal.
Other additions you can get include Aloe Vera Cubes and fruit jelly. I had a chance to try the Aloe Vera Cubes, they taste like these good Aloe Vera drinks that I used to get at the 99 cent store.
Boba Drink - Look at the Dark Balls on the Bottom
Except instead of tasting like grape, the Aloe Vera had a very clean taste. They add more texture than anything else. Be careful because the Aloe Vera seems to float at the top of the beverage, instead of sinking to the bottom like boba. The Aloe Vera tastes really good in the California Green Tea. So I make my order of King’s Oolong Tea and Hot Sweet Butter Toast and get a pleasant surprise. (If you pay with cash you get 5% off your order)
Then I sit down and turn on my laptop.
Sweet Butter Toast
At Cha for Tea you get free wifi wireless access with your purchase of a drink. The internet at Cha for Tea is more stable than at the Peet’s Coffee and Tea in University Center so it is always a pleasure to be able to upload and download my files quickly to my website. You can download files up to about 100 Kilobytes per second (Kbps) and the upload rate seems to be good too. Also at cha For Tea you don’t get kicked off the Net after 2 hours like you do at Peet’s and that is a big bonus. Although at Peet’s you can always ask for another wireless access code. After my Sweet Butter Toast and King’s Hot Tea is finished the staff at cha For Tea call my name and I pick up the items from the counter. The food stuffs at cha For Tea are served in Styrofoam containers. When picking up a drink the staff always says, “If you need any changes or adjustments let us know!” This means that if you don’t like your drink, they can fix it. This helps out a lot because the tea drinks at cha are priced like premium drinks at Starbuck’s. A regular sized tea is about $4.00 but more specifically my King’s Hot Oolong Tea is $3.89 and Sweet Butter Toast is $3.08 so this makes the whole meal $6.97 not counting tax and the 5% cash discount. So you can see how it’s nice to know that the staff at cha For Tea is willing to make your beverage to order. Because this is not a basic tea bag in a cup of hot water like you’d expect to get at Starbuck’s.
Hot King's Tea
At cha For Tea they use cool looking plastic tea infusers with loose leaf tea. The loose leaf tea is much higher quality than what one might find in a tea bag. Tea bags are known for being the scrap leaves that are sorted out from higher quality teas. These scrap leaves and dust particles are called fannings. Fortunately, cha For Tea uses high quality loose leaf tea. And the flavor is memorable. The King’s Hot Oolong Tea has a subtle, sweet flavor that only appears on the palate after the tea has cooled down a bit. After the tea has relaxed to room temperature, the sweetness really comes out. After eating the sweet butter toast and drinking the King’s Oolong Hot Tea, I throw out my trash and the staff say goodbye.
The staff always are friendly from the moment you walk in the door to when you leave. And even though it seems like it is in their job description to be friendly, the staff seem sincere enough to make you comfortable when enjoying tea in a group or alone. Speaking of groups, if you bring a few friends cha For Tea has a selection of board games to choose from that you can play. I’ve seen people playing Scrabble and other games like Taboo. Sometimes there are large groups that come into cha For Tea that overwhelm the place. This happens during Freshman Orientation for UCI (University of California at Irvine). But usually cha For Tea is comfortable enough for me to work on my laptop until it gets close to closing time, which is at 1AM. Overall cha For Tea is an excellent place for high quality teas and for using the internet. The only real thing that cha For Tea lacks for a blogger is a power outlet to plug in your laptop. But if you come charged you will not be disappointed with the lively atmosphere provided by cha For Tea. Although I recommend if you are doing computer work, that you bring ear phones in order to block out some of the sound of orders being called out and the overall ruckus of cha For Tea. If you are looking for a place to get an inexpensive cup of tea, I’d recommend that you get a tea bag at Peet’s or Starbuck’s, because cha For Tea is going to cost you about $4.00 per drink minimum. (Maybe more if you order pearls or other additions to the beverage) But if you are trying to find a place to enjoy a specialty tea drink with perhaps some cooked food dishes then cha For Tea is the place for you.