PopulariTea Bubble Tea — Restaurant in Ottawa

After reading all the reviews and trying the place myself, I highly suspect that many reviews are reviews from non customers. Claiming its your “go-to spot” when it’s only been opened two weeks, and it being the best in Canada is a bit far fetch.

The shop is nice and clean inside. Staff were very friendly and welcoming. Their menu is very colourful and arcadey. They have many flavours and different drink styles with various toppings. Like other bubble tea shops, you can personalize your drink with the amount of sugar and ice. I got the classic milk tea with grass jelly for myself and the mango milkshake with pearls for my SO. The milk tea tasted good. Not too sweet as I requested for it to be 30% sugar. The grass jelly was however very disappointing. It wasn’t soft grass jelly so I wasn’t even able to drink it through my straw, I had to go home and get a spoon to scoop it out. It was also very evident it came from a can as some of the pieces had the can imprint ripples to it. I got a large which was in a ridiculously tall narrow cup. As you can see (picture below) the straw provided was too short to even reach the bottom of the cup. The mango milkshake was a let down as well. It consisted of real mango, milk, ice cream, and mango powder. Although they used some real mango, the drink was unfortunately overpowered by the powdered mango and gave it a very artificial taste. I think a mango syrup would probably do better in the shake than a powdered flavour. The tapioca were chewy and they gave a generous amount of it but it was not soft like tapioca pearls are meant to be.

There’s a lot of bubble tea shops in Ottawa now so I understand the competition is high. My review is not to bash the business, but more so to give an honest review based on my experience. Luckily I bought the drinks during their promo for 50% off but I wouldn’t pay full...

This was a pleasently unexpected find. It's going to be our go-to bubble tea place from now on. I chose it because it was close to my house but I wasn't sure if it was going to be good because the cups have no name on it and they don't have a website. We usually uber bubble tea from the market.

I always choose a medium Taro milk tea whenever I try a new place. I judge drinks by the flavour of the tea and the quality of the boba and black jelly. The taro tea was nicely sweetened though it could have been thicker, the boba was cooked well and the black jelly was nicely seeetened and had a nice chewy (not falling apart like jello or hard like a gummy) texture. I think they must make the black jelly in house because canned jelly has a bitter ending that I didn't taste.

My daughter's medium mango milk tea was delicious. They're frequently too sweet but this one wasn't. My friend got a small melon milk tea. She loved it and the fresh melon pieces. I can't speak to this flavor because melon milk tea isn't my thing. It was smooth and tasted like...melon.

The owner gave us a sampling of their signature brown sugar milk tea with cheese foam. It was so good. I'm going to order that one next week with reduced ice.

The only thing this place needs is to offer are...

EDITED NEW REVIEW: They brought back their old recipes a week ago and I've already gone 3 times since. Back to 5 stars, definitely my favourite spot and glad there's a nice bubble tea place in the area.

PREVIOUS REVIEW: My previous 5 star review is now changed because their recipes changed. Unfortunately instead of flavoured syrup they now use real fruit puree which is great in terms of health but if you're going for bubble tea you're not exactly drinking it to be healthy...it takes away the whole tea aspect, it now seems more like a homemade juice rather than a tea. When I drink bubble TEA I don't want pulp/crushed fruit in it I want it to be silky smooth, like actual tea. And I'm sad that the menu is now all full price because it used to be 50% off so now it's more expensive for a drink that is less good :( I expected the menu to go full price eventually but I never expected recipe changes. I say, don't fix something that never had an issue! :) still a good place to go but not my favourite nor my go-to anymore. One plus is that the service is now much quicker than...