Chatime

They don’t have many of the choices available on their menu. I tried to order the Tieguanyin tea and the counter girl don’t even know what I’m talking about even if it is in the menu.

Best bubble tea shop in the university area. However, I only say that because of the taro milk tea; it’s delicious. It has little taro pieces and isn’t too sweet making it so refreshing.
I’ve tried a few other milk teas/​slushes and none have compared with the taro.
Service can be a bit slow but it’s a cute shop.

This place offers the best bubble tea in Waterloo period. It kinda sucks that you need to explicitly mention that you would want tapioca pearls in your bubble tea instead of waiting for the cashier to ask you whether you want it or not.
The service is kind of slow around 8pm on weekdays as many people come to chatime to study and relax at that time. If you can avoid that time, it would be great.
My personal favourite teas are the hazelnut milk tea and their chatime pearl tea.

If there is a Chatime in the area I’m visiting. It is a MUST Go!
We dropped by this location on a fairly busy Friday night especially since this is university area… This Chatime I would say is fairly bigger than the ones I’m use to going to (sauga and bay/​dundas). The location is 110% perfect and spot on. You can’t go wrong being in a plaza filled me food options and pretty much only beverage option.
While my drinks were being made, I was observing and felt that they were pretty backed up as there was only one girl making the drinks. The other was prepping, I’m assuming the chatime milk tea or roasted milk tea. All I could see was her stirring the tea and the cups kept lining up.
On top of that my order was not 100% but I took it anyways as we were on the go and I didn’t want to stress the girls out. Thumbs up to the cash girl as she did realize the mistake.
In terms of taste, I felt my usual drink, taro milk tea, a little bland. It is usually more flavourful at the other locations.
I would still come back for another shot but I do see other options to try on Unilocal :)

Had a roasted milk tea with red bean and grass jelly. Ordered it with half sugar and no ice. It’s pretty good. It’s sweet enough since the grassy jelly and red bean are already sweetened.

This is the best bubble tea place in Waterloo! I usually get the chaitime milk tea with grass jelly with no sugar. I don’t think you really need the sugar in milk tea because it basically taste the same but less sweet. But if you like sweet drinks then get the sugar for sure!
I recommend getting less ice so you can more of the drink and you won’t get the diluted taste if you were to get the ice and it melts.

Okay you Waterloo fanatics, you should be very happy Chatime has come to your city. There’s been a huge bubble tea craze that has engulfed the GTA in the past 3 – 5 years, and it finally spread to Waterloo. Makes sense, there’s so many Asians in both UW and Laurier!
Now I’ve been to a lot of Chatime branches and have compared drinks across all the ones I’ve been to. This branch is good for Waterloo standards, but it’s not the best. I had the hazelnut chocolate milk tea with tapioca and regular ice/​sugar, which is my standard order. However, the ice content was too little, as it melted within the first 5 minutes of me drinking my tea. I like to drink it slowly and enjoy my tea, hence why I go for regular ice and sugar.
My friend got one of their QQ drinks, and didn’t like it. He said it was too sweet for his liking, but that could of course be adjusted.
This is an extremely slow branch, so do budget for some time to obtain your drinks. Initially there was no lineup, but after I took my order and waited for my drinks, a long lineup formed.
I like the Waterloo sign near the washroom; it’s quite unique, and in case some of you don’t know the «loo» is Asian/​British slang talk for washroom.
For me, I actually still prefer Sweet Dreams over Chatime, in Waterloo at least.

My go-​to place for bubble tea at Waterloo. I highly recommend the grass jelly roasted milk tea, as other people have mentioned. I personally like mine with less ice and 30% sugar, as I find normal sugar to be very sweet. I also get their QQ drinks sometimes (in case people don’t know, QQ is a mix of tapioca and coconut jelly).
They have a point system where if you get 10 drinks, you get 1 free which is always nice.

Dropped in during a late-​night wander: pleasantly surprised!
I’m not quite the bubble-​tea connoisseur, but I’ve been around the block a few times and this place was a nice discovery.
+ most of the drinks were not the sugary «honeydew/​taro/​powdery base»
+ readily offered samples before I even said anything!
+ fine-​grained sugar options: 0, 30%, 50%, 100%
+ they have grass jelly!
+ cool atmosphere for hangouts
Can’t think of any cons off the top of my head, so you get 5-​stars!

Very mediocre, standard bubble tea. The drinks here are yummy since they’re sugary drinks, but there’s nothing that will knock your socks off. At least the service here is pretty fast when I went. However, they did forget grass jelly in one of the orders…
The ambiance is nice though, as a hang-​out place with your friends — to sit around and talk for a while. There is a lot of table and chair space :)

So glad Chatime made its way to Waterloo. This branch runs at a slower pace than the equivalent Toronto branches, though still the same great flavour. IMO way better than Sweet Dreams & Noon Moment, but obviously a bit more expensive than the other two options. They tend to run a lot of discount & promotion events, too (ie. BOGO, or during the World Cup, it was cheap pricing to buy an oversized cup.)
Large amount of seating, which is great for those who want to stay to hang out or study. Free wifi provided, though a bit spotty (Password is their phone #).
They also tend to be closed when university final exams have finished so double check their fb page to avoid making the trip if you don’t need to.

For sure one of the most pricey bubble tea shop around UW and Laurier campus, but somehow still extremely popular. A size small cup is $ 4.2 for bubble tea and large is 4.7. I ordered the matcha mousse and it was amazing, but it’s a hassel that I had to manually mix the tea and mousse on my own first. The shop has some cool seating areas, good for hanging out with friends. I would come back to this place occassionally, but the prices is the main factor that keeps me away.

Best bubble tea in Waterloo!
I was really excited when Chatime came to Waterloo, having been a regular at the Toronto locations. However, relative to the other Chatimes in Toronto, this Chatime always has a longer line up. It usually takes a little longer to get your bubble tea after paying, but it’s worth the wait! On the other hand, the location has a lot more space and you often find people studying here (although there is no WiFi). Highly recommend checking it out if you’re in the area.
Recommend the roasted milk tea with grass jelly and matcha tea latte. Remember to ask for the desired ice level and sugar level — apparently getting «slight sugar» is generally 3 pumps of sugar, which is quite a lot. Personally I prefer the slight sugar and less ice options.

After months of seeing friends on Facebook sharing their experience at Chatime. I wanted to see what the hype was all about. So when I walked into the store I was surprise to see a shorter line than I had expected — maybe because it was exam period for students in Loo.
While studying the menu (overwhelmed by the ridiculously long menu) the girl at the cashier offered me samples of different toppings to help me with my decision. So finally with her recommendation & guidance I choose their Oolong mousse with 50% ice and sugar.
Surprisingly the Oolong tea flavor was very pronounced and the mousse on top was sweet yet there was a hint of savory after taste. It was a strange but tasty match. Just like that magical moment when you taste peanut butter and chocolate for the first time –you’ll never thought the two thing would complement each other so well until you actually took the guts to taste it. This was like Chatime’s peanut butter cups!
Verdict: Great service & delicious drink! I would of given Chatime a 4 stars but the extra star was for the attentive girl at the cashier who helped me picked out a drink — extremely patience. Now I understand what all the noise was about. I’m now officially a fan! Chatime you will definitely see me again.

Super hyped up and a big step up from most bubble tea places here in Waterloo. I like my bubble tea made from real fruit instead if syrup and powder. They use syrups here. The good thing is that their milk tea has a lot more tea flavour than other places.
I have yet to try Noon Moment, so I can’t compare. Chatime is just –really– expensive and you might have to line up for a little while. If you go, you might want to get your drink with less sugar because it’s really sweet. I’m not sure I would go back to Chatime though.

Like every good ethnic taiwanese, I made the pilgrimage to Chatime, the bubble tea franchise taking southern Ontario by storm. Walking in, I’m overwhelmed by the line up and crowd of students at 10:30pm. I grimaced a bit, but someone helpfully pointed me to the ordering line for the cashier. Apparently, the massive line up was just for picking up the bubble teas already ordered. There was just one person ahead of me in the order line so I ordered quite quickly. Then I waited for my drink, which probably took ten minutes. They’re faster than they look, despite appearing hopelessly understaffed at that moment. About half an hour later, the rush was done and the crowd was mostly gone.
I got the grass jelly roasted milk tea, recommended by Jacky M. It was pretty good. Funny name, but it’s a good taste profile. Clean, refreshing, flavorful. Make sure you ask for slight ice and less sugar to get more bang from your buck and fewer insulin pumps.
The asian-​ness of this place can be intimidating, to say the least, but it’s actually a decent place to hang out. Lots of chairs and tables. Just a bit crowded sometimes. I think Waterloo can probably support two more of these franchises. It’s funny to think that the combined IQ of all these students drinking bubble tea is enough to start a nuclear fusion reaction.

Came to visit my friend in U of Waterloo and she brought me to the new Chatime in town. We were there after dinner time and there’s a line up in the store. The wait was ok cuz lineup is always expected when u want to get a Chatime anywhere in Toronto. Ended up ordering two drinks, one roasted milk tea with glass jelly and the other with pearls. Both tasted great. However, I would recommend to order half sugar as I find it a little sweeter than the other Chatimes. Next time I’ll try their mousse.
Update: They seem to have adjusted their sweetness level. This time I had their milk tea with grass jelly at normal sugar and it was just right — weren’t as sweet as last time. Enjoyed spending time with my friends here in this cozy environment and using their WIFI.
Conclusion: my experience this time around was better than my last visit. lines weren’t overly long.

The quality is what you’d come to expect from chatime. I’m happy to see one in waterloo. There is usually a long wait here but that’s because its not your average bubble tea place.
I know it’s tempting to have tapioca and a bunch of fruity flavors in your «bubble tea». But remember that you have come to the Starbucks of bubble tea shops. Try something new and unique. I highly recommend the Grassjelly Roasted Milk Tea. (less sugar no ice)

Long line up on opening day! There were free samples of various milk teas and cupcakes.
Would recommend the Grass Jelly Roasted Milk Tea, it has more flavour. :) The milk tea is good, but I think you can get better value at Noon Moment down the street… cheaper, just as good and shorter line.

Since this is a new location, i wanted to see if the roasted milk tea with grass jelly (half sugar no ice) was just as good as their other locations — and it was.
Please be sure to try this at least once!