Bubble Island

Great variety of teas available and I have probably almost tried everything at this place! Great place to get homework done and they have a deal every day in which you can get a medium bubble tea for $ 2 if you come before 1P.M. I always stop in here during breaks in between classes. The people here are super nice and always make good suggestions when you want to try something different.

Lots of options! I tried taro for the first time and it was great! Very fresh boba here!

Super yummy bubble tea with lots of options for flavors. The staff is really friendly too. Although there aren’t too many places to sit so if it’s busy you might not be able to hang out inside. I’ve also seen people studying here a lot? Which I don’t understand because the music tends to be pretty loud at times and again, there aren’t a lot of places to sit. But if you’re just there for the tea, it’s not a bad deal.

Great bubble tea and calm and cool atmosphere here, most of their products are imported from Taiwan so it’s pretty authentic stuff, I’d strongly recommend it. The only thing I would change would be the music selection, I don’t personally think that rap music best fits this place, more so when that’s just about all that’s played every time I go there, and especially when it has profanity and there are so many families and young kids that often go there too. The bubble tea is great though and it’s worth your pay to come here and sit back, relax, and enjoy a good drink.

the girls behind the counter were really sweet and didn’t freak out about my group of 6 and our confusing orders. Can’t say the people who worked at BI when I lived in Ann Arbor were always as patient lol. Drinks are good– Sugary as always but get the job done.

We go here a lot. At first we had a hard time figuring out what exactly they could make. The staff seemed a little confused as well. They seem to have different people working there all the time. I’m always seeing new faces working.
They have a couple different choices. But nothing with chocolate, except the cookies and cream, which I think is a little weird.
It’s always kept clean, and is a pretty mellow place to hang out.

This bubble tea is so good! Whenever I’m in the mood for it I come here (: the strawberry mango is my absolute favorite

Lots of seating, free wi-​fi; visiting EL after living in Beijing for a year. The bubble tea is pretty legit here! It’s a great spot to get some work done or just hang out.

I didn’t fully appreciate Bubble Island until I recently tried a lot of other bubble teas in Chicago and Grand Rapids. The tea here at Bubble Island is the best. I think it’s because the bubbles here are slightly sweet. Also, you can’t beat the $ 2 special if you come here before 1pm.

Love it here. All the teas are amazing :) I have tried probably every one of the teas with the fruit juices. So delicious. Try something different every time and you will not be disappointed! My favorite so far is the Tropical Rush substitute with Green tea.

Coming from living in Hawai’i for 4yrs, I was expecting something along the same lines. I figured it was a mainstream mix that most places had down to a T.
I ordered the Thai tea, which had been my favorite there. Then right after that I was asked «Ok, what flavor do you want?» to which I was confused & said «Isn’t that the flavor itself?» I then explained where I was coming from, and she stated she wasn’t sure how authentic their recipe’s were. I also got boba with it.
I noticed so many differences… I wasn’t asked the sweetness level I wanted, or how much much ice I wanted. They lacked quite a few choices as to what you can add to the drink (ice cream is a must!). And in regards to the actual mix: it was pretty watered down, not much of a milk tea (in Hawai’i it is all heavily milk based, you just pick the flavor), the flavor was lacking that one of a kind Thai sweetness, & the only ice that was added was b/​c their boba was warm [she said].? So it wasn’t very cold, and the boba was not solidified, far too chewy. It actually made the drinking experience quite unenjoyable. Also, they don’t mix the drink prior to serving it to you, another clear difference I noticed, but not terribly detrimental.
All in all, unimpressed & let down. I’ll have to fly 5000miles if I want the real deal it seems.

Came here on a Wednesday at 8pm and they were already closed! Very sad day. The one in Ann Arbor was always open until 2am. Can’t believe a tea shop would close so early on a college campus and they didn’t even have any hours posted anywhere. Ugh.

Okay, so yeah, the service isn’t terrible. In fact the baristas (?) are usually friendly.
However, the drinks are expensive for what they are. I’ve never paid this much for boba even in California where everything (and I mean /​everything/​) is more expensive. The variety is all right, but if you know what you want, you’d be better off just «creating your own» than getting a pre-​made drink.
If I want good boba, I usually go to Peking Express or yknow, any other Chinese restaurant around. But Bubble Island does have the $ 2 drink special before 1 pm. And it’s centrally located. So.
But if you’re familiar with boba that is good and cheap, maybe don’t go here. I will say they do have mochi ice cream (it’s a little expensive, but I like getting one and some curly fries and studying). They also have board games for customers to play up by the window, which is nice.

Mango jellies, black pearls, colored pearls — whichever bubbles float your boat, Bubble Island has ‘em. They also sell mochi, Pocky sticks, gummies and Hello Panda candies/​cookies.
We like to walk in every other visit to EL to get our staple drinks for the ride home. His is a lychee calpico cooler with mango stars. Mine is a taro and coconut tea with black pearls. Pearls, bubbles, really they’re just tapioca balls which, if you’re not careful, are a choking hazard. I urge you to practice proper mouth to ball coordination and control.
If you’ve never had a bubble tea, just imagine a chilled sweet tea drink with balls on the bottom. There’s quite a bit of sucking involved and I can guarantee you that it will most likely be the only drink where you’re required to chew. If none of that has put you off, stop in and have the staff help you pick out your first bubble tea.

Sad to say that at two o’clock in the afternoon they were blasting music with the words: bitch, ass, pussy, nigger, Fuck, Dick… well, you get the idea. I asked the guy at the counter for his manager, because then a woman and her 8 year old daughter had come in. The manager at the time was actually the general manager of the business, who curly informed me that it was her iPod playing and DJs had been too busy changing trash backs to change the music.
Well I was there for over an hour, so they must need to hire some assistance if their small location takes an hour to do trash.

Love this location!!! Friendly workers and delicious drinks. My new fave is the strawberry fusion tea w/​mango stars!
Only thing I’ve noticed is they don’t add ice in their drinks. Not a big deal for me since I usu take my drink home and stick it in the fridge, but just an FYI.

I never thought I would be able to walk into an establishment and order a «strawberry kiwi snow bubble with rainbow jellies», but that’s exactly what I do and they process my order with a straight face. It’s great.

To people that have not had good boba this place is decent. I usualy get almond milk tea boba. Honestly, I would try to get in there early to get the $ 2 special … $ is not proportionate for the quality of boba otherwise.
For those use to good boba, this place is ok enough to satisfy your cravings.

I loved Bubble Island during the last school year. It was decent bubble tea with good customer service in a pretty relaxing place.
This year, things have been a bit off.
It seems like Bubble Island has gotten a completely new staff as I don’t recognize anyone working there and they seem to constantly be training staff. During the last school year I could order a drink and it would be ready before I got to the cash register. At one point it took them five minutes to make my drink on a day that wasn’t busy. There have also been a couple of times when I’ve made an order and the staff behind the counter has just stood there for a few moments before starting to make the drink, almost as if they’re processing the order.
On one Sunday, I ventured in to get the Purple Haze – which is really good, by the way – and I made my order. The girl behind the counter who helped me insisted on calling me «sir,» and I corrected her. (I have short hair, but I had a floral purse with me that day) When I corrected her she gave me a look that said «Like I care?»
I went to pay and I poked a hole in the top to put my straw in. «You’re doing it wrong,» the girl behind the counter said and she took my straw away and poked a second hole in the top of the drink, which then resulted in bubble tea flying onto my coat. I asked if she could make a new drink because there was now less bubble tea in my cup. She just went and put it in a new cup, meaning I didn’t have that much tea.
Thanks to that experience, I’m never going to Bubble Island again. I’m giving this place two stars because its bubble tea is pretty good. I’ve had better, but that’s in big cities. So if you can overlook really slow and occasionally awful customer service, then you should definitely try this place for Bubble Island. Unfortunately, I cannot overlook their customer service quality, so I’ll forgo bubble tea.

This place is one of my favorite snack/​drinks place in East Lansing. It has a large variety of milk tea/​flavored tea drinks and one of the few places you can get Boba (and other gelatinous treats) in your drinks in East Lansing. All their drinks are only $ 2 if you go before 2pm, which is a real treat if you are trying to save on snacks expenditure. They are always friendly and can whip up almost any combination of flavor you want.
It is also a great place to work between classes — but not if you can’t stand pop music. They provide free wi-​fi and have a very comfortable atmosphere.