For those of you looking for a new tea place, look no further than M.I.Tea Express. It stands for “Made in Taiwan” and they just had their grand opening this last weekend. They had lion dance performances! Unfortunately I couldn’t make it but I was able to go three or four times during their soft opening period. M.I.Tea Express is located right next to the new Zion market off Clairemont Mesa Blvd.
The menu has slightly changed and they offer some food now. Lots of items to try on the menu huh? If you read closer, some of the choices don’t really give you specifics on what you’re going to get. “Ocean Breeze” might be just what I need on these hot September days, but maybe not. Luckily we met Hung behind the counter and he described all of the drinks that piqued our interest.
The bright pink drink in the back is the Rose Blossom. All the times I’ve been here I asked Hung to make me whatever he thought was good since he seemed to know his stuff. This was the most popular drink so I guess we had to get it as our first from M.I.Tea. We also ordered all of our drinks as is to see how the sweetness would be for each drink. Typically we order our drinks 1/2 -1/4 sweetness at other tea places. This one comes with basil seeds, lychee jellies, strawberries, and those popping boba’s. It was fairly sweet and fruity. I’m not a fan of the popping boba’s so if I were to get it again I’d ask for them to not put any in.
The other drink Hung recommended was the Oolong tea. Anh loves her Oolong tea so she was quite excited about this one. After she had one sip, conversation ended for at least a few minutes while she lived in her own little Oolong world. I was lucky she shared and this was hands down the winner so far. The secret is apparently this machine down below.
They got their own tea espresso machine! Maybe I never paid attention to it in the past but I haven’t seen one of these in production before. Hung showed us the Oolong tea leaves that go in each time they prepare the drink and it slowly drips until it fills a cup below that ultimately ends up in your belly. It was nice seeing this process from start to finish because at most other boba joints you don’t really know when they made the tea and how long it’s been steeping for. Oolong is a tad bitter but when done well it comes off quite nice and clean. The sweetness was perfect and helped balance the natural bitterness of the tea. We have a winner folks! Another thing to note is I don’t know if this was the Momo Oolong or just something he whipped up for us that wasn’t on the menu. We’ll have to verify next time.
Next visit we got the Matcha Green Milk Tea with boba and the MilkyWay Icicles. I wasn’t super excited about the Matcha Green Milk Tea. It had an artificial flavor that was hard to get past. The boba tasted fine for us since we like something to munch on while drinking. The MilkyWay Icicles reminds me of shaved snow but in a drink form. It consisted of blended ice and milk, black sugar syrup, boba, and grass jelly. This one had a sweeter finish to it than any of the previous drinks and one that we’d adjust slightly. I didn’t care much for the grass jelly and would probably substitute it for pudding next time, although then it seems like I’d be subconsciously trying to replicate a Half and Half drink… All in all it was a welcomed change to the normal teas we order and I may order this one again when I’m in the mood for something thicker.
Last is the Oolong Milk Tea and Brown Sugar Milk Tea. Sorry one of the pictures escaped and is on the loose! The Oolong Milk Tea isn’t on the menu either but we wanted to try what it would taste like with some milk in it so Hung humored us and prepared it like we had asked. For whatever reason it didn’t quite live up to our expectations. Not to say it was bad, but the straight up Oolong Tea was far superior. The Brown Sugar Milk Tea was second in sweetness to the MilkyWay Icicles. I enjoyed this one but probably would stick with the Oolong or try something different next time.
I’m really glad a new tea spot opened up and I hope they do well. There aren’t many places we frequent to get our tea fix so this is nice to mix things up. Maybe we’ll taste their food while we sample our next drink recommendation when we stop by next time. In summary, try their Oolong Tea because 1) it tastes friggin delicious and 2) you get to see them use that amazing machine and 3) Hung and I say so.
M.I.Tea Express
7655 Clairemont Mesa Blvd., Ste 502
San Diego, CA 92111
[google-map-v3 width=”580″ height=”350″ zoom=”12″ maptype=”roadmap” mapalign=”center” directionhint=”false” language=”default” poweredby=”false” maptypecontrol=”true” pancontrol=”true” zoomcontrol=”true” scalecontrol=”true” streetviewcontrol=”true” scrollwheelcontrol=”false” draggable=”true” tiltfourtyfive=”false” addmarkermashupbubble=”false” addmarkermashupbubble=”false” addmarkerlist=”7655 Clairemont Mesa Blvd., Ste 502, San Diego, CA 92111{}restaurant.png{}M.I.Tea Express” bubbleautopan=”true” showbike=”false” showtraffic=”false” showpanoramio=”false”]
2 Comments on “It’s Tea Time! M.I.Tea Express(Kearny Mesa)”