Gong Cha

Drinks are decent as long as you get 100% sweet. 50% sweetness = plain, 100% = gooooood (hence why it is called regular). White pearls are NOT recommended. Stick to black pearls, herbal/​grass jelly, and pudding for topping choices.

I came to this area from the east coast for a summer internship and make it a goal to try bubble teas wherever I go. I have to say that out of the dozens of different places I’ve tried, Gong Cha has the best Milk tea with boba. I got the Milk foam black tea with 100% sugar, regular ice, white pearls, and regular pearls. The pearls had the perfect amount of chewiness and the tea had great flavor. After every sip I had to pinch myself to verify that I was indeed awake. Gong Cha has forever changed my life. As I go on, Gong Cha will forever remain in my heart.

Gong Cha has always been my go-​to spot for boba in the east/​south bay if I didn’t know where else to go. Making this a more of a general statement than for this specific location, I love how they make their drinks. It’s a little more on the pricey side ($ 3.50 about for a small, $ 4 for a large) but they offer a good selection of tea drinks. I used to love their earl gray with 3J but now I’ve been in love with their tea cremas. Last I was at this particular location, I tried their oolong milk tea crema with almond jelly. SO good! I usually get my drinks 50−80% sweet and with 50% ice. This location in particular is pretty small and used to be the old Tpumps located right next to Old Town sushi. There’s a decent amount of seating, but I don’t think it gets super busy as downtown San Mateo has a comfortable amount of foot traffic.
I don’t really have any complaints about their service or quality of drinks. I’m happy this is probably the closest Gong Cha to me! I hope they open one in SF eventually.

Came here a few times, even though the area is dotted with boba shops on every corner. Just because I really wanted to like it, it came a long way from Taiwan! But, higher the expectation, more the disappointment.
I’ve tried a few drinks, the panda, the earl grey, etc. All had one fault in common — tea wasn’t strong enough. The tea taste was quite weak. Mostly sweet milk, less of the tea that I wanted.
Although not bad, it’s not my first pick in the area.

3.5 stars but rounding up, even though they messed up my order and forgot my Crema. They were really nice about it and offered to rip off the top and add the crema, but I wanted the sealed top versus the raised dome top. My coworkers and I came around 12:30pm on a Thursday, and it wasn’t crowded at that time. I got the QQ Passion Fruit Green Tea (w/​Rainbow Jelly & White Pearl, Medium/​$ 4.00,
) with 50% sweet + 50% ice, but since I had the rainbow jelly I wish I ordered 30% sweet instead. The passion fruit great tea had good flavor though, and I really like their white pearls. I would definitely get this again. Parking is always tough in Downtown San Mateo during the lunch and dinner rushes, but we were lucky and got a 24 minute only spot right away.

I ordered the brown sugar fresh milk tea. The drink was refreshing and did its task in quenching my thirst. It tasted like a regular milk tea, but sweeter. There is nothing else more to say really. I would come back to try a different beverage from here.

I’ve tried Gong Cha in Seoul and Hong Kong. They have more varieties of drinks and tasted much better than this one. Also, this Gong Cha is too sweet. I only pick 25% of sweet but still too sweet. There was also no taste of oolong tea but just creamer and sweetener.
One extra star for the friendly cashier.

There is one time i was waiting in the front for at least a minute before someone realize I was there to take my order. Half the staff were busy making drinks, and half were just cuddling in the back. Then a few other times services were really slow. Just really bad experience overall.

1. 50% = 100%+ Ice. If what I got was «50%», it would be literally impossible to double that and still fit all that ice in my cup, let alone any tea.
2. They get your order wrong. I’ve been here twice, to try and give them the benefit of the doubt. They forgot boba in my taro milk tea! How do you do that?! When I pointed that out to them, I watched as they slit the cup open, poured it into another cup with boba and ADDED MORE ICE!!! WTF?! Refer to #1, where I’m already complaining that my supposed 50% ice is taking up 75% of my drink. Now there’s MORE?!
3. I don’t know if any of this «customize sweetness» actually applies here. Is it a lie like the ice, or do the drink makers just don’t care? My 50% sweet was sweeter than the full sweet I’ve gotten at other boba places. Maybe it was to combat the fact that it was going to be REALLY watered down soon?
I really tried, Gong Cha. I tried you in Palo Alto, and I tried you in San Mateo. I don’t want to say that it completely did not live up to the time I tried you in China, but… it didn’t. Pale comparison? Tasted like a completely different store. Acted like a completely different store too.
Stay away! If their terrible service doesn’t get you, their horrible drinks will…

One of my favorite boba places. The milk foam is like nothing else and the boba is good as well. Drinks are very sweet though. Ask them to shake it extra long with the ice.

We were a bit hesistant to try this San Mateo location of Gong Cha, since our standards are high from the Fremont location, but no need to worry, these teas are just as tasty as the original :)
I got my usual green tea with milk foam, 30% sweet, with pearls, with less milk foam. I really recommend asking for less milk foam so that the cream doesn’t overpower the flavor of the tea. Delicious. Should have gotten a large! Never making that mistake again.

Not gonna lie I’m pretty obsessed with the green tea milk foam. The oolong milk foam is also pretty good! Definitely one of my favorite boba spots!

I’ve finally been able to try this place out a few times and while the drinks are usually spot on, the service can be a bit off. I asked for my usual brown sugar milk foam tea with boba and it took three tries for the server to get me the right drink! The first one didn’t have milk tea, the next one didn’t have foam, and even on the third try I didn’t have the regular size boba (which definitely has an effect on the overall taste). I’m usually not the type of person to send something back several times but if it’s completely off from what I want it’s hard to just let it slide.
That being said, I really hope they can increase the availability of drink flavors and improve their service, because this really is one of the better boba places in the area. And judging from the other reviews it looks like a lot of other people have similar feelings on the quality of service. Upping my rating to two stars but hope to be able to up it even more in the future.

I usually love bubble tea and don’t really have issues when I go, but my cup of tea here was… not my cup of tea. At all.
They ask you sugar and ice levels when you order. I said 50% sugar and «the regular amount of ice» to the cashier. Apparently, the regular amount is 25% which is not really a lot of ice, and as a result the drink is not that cold (almost lukewarm).
The bubble tea also had a weird aftertaste. It tasted like it was flavored with artificial sweeteners, which is gross.
My boyfriend’s drink had similar issues, and he couldn’t get that nasty taste out of his mouth for awhile.

I came on a Monday night. Service was fast but the cashier guy seemed new and didn’t understand me. a little awkward too.
I got the milk foam earl grey and it did not disappoint! 50% ice and 50% sweetness level, although I still thought it’s a little too sweet for me. I really like how the foam doesn’t melt and stays floating at the top so it doesn’t mix with the tea part of the drink. There are also little bits of matcha powder on the foam; yum! This place will be my go to for milk foam drinks from now on.

Having realized that I hadn’t had boba for several months, I realized I had to rectify this situation. Gong Cha was the new kid on the block, so my friend decided to introduce me to it. I opted for the Wintermelon Milk Foam with boba. No ice.
Order was delivered prompt and actually looked very appetizing. The sprinkle of matcha powder is definitely a nice finishing touch. I was a bit disappointed in that my tea tasted watered down (despite having no ice) but other than that, it was definitely a refreshing and sweet way to wind down the night. By the time we left, the line was out the door… so they must be doing something right.

I LOVE basil seeds, white pearls and creama drinks, so I naturally ordered the milk foam wintermelon drink with basil seeds, white pearls with zero ice and damn the drink is good!
Their peppermint green tea taste horrible. It tastes a lot like toothpaste! Blah and eww! It also left a nasty aftertaste too! So freaking gross!
Very nice and humorous people working here!

Noooo thank you. Out of all the Gong Chas I’ve been to, this is probably the worst. Tea was so-​so, toppings were scarce. We always order agar balls whenever we’re in NorCal, as Socal has yet to catch up with this trend, and we were extremely disappointed with the amount we got. We were so disappointed we walked across the street to Bambu and lo and behold! Plentiful agar balls yayyyyyyyy!
…but yea, don’t go here. There’s plenty other tea places around with better quality and quantity.

The first time I went to Gong Cha I got the Taro Milk Tea which is one of their more popular drinks. I thought the taste was a bit too sweet for me which is very strange because I love sweet. I asked for 50% ice but I feel like I got 100% (picture below in comparison to my friend’s order)… So weird.
Then I came back here today and ordered the Cookies & Crème (black) milk foam. This time I made the ice 50% and sweetness 50% and they got the ice and sweetness part down… But it barely tasted like cookies & crème. I was super disappointed :(I was thinking maybe it was because I stirred everything together instead of drinking the milk foam drinks the other way?! But yeah, what a bummer because it looks like they just sprinkle some oreo crumbles on top instead of infuse the cookies & crème into the drink.
You can literally order any drinks here hot if it doesn’t have a little snowflake at the beginning of the drink on the menu (those drinks have specify jelly in it so it’d melt or whatever according to the cashier).
Overall my experience here was okay. I wouldn’t mind coming back here, but it definitely wouldn’t be my first choice in San Mateo.

I only visit Gong Cha if I am craving a milk foam drink. They have never disappointed me in this aspect. Their other drinks are just ordinary.
The milk foam green tea I had satisfied my craving nicely. I got this drink at 50% sweetness, per recommendation, and it was the perfect amount of milk foam and tea taste.
I knocked off a star for safety. It was raining when I visited this location yesterday and the floors were very slippery. They did put up a caution sign, but I still feel the floor material should be of a different kind, or they should place rugs on rainy days! We were very very careful when we were walking from our table to the restroom. It wasn’t even raining super hard outside!
Also, I suggest they use an online platform for their reward system. It’s much easier punching in your phone number than carrying a stamp card around. I’ll still come back when I’m in the area though!