Shiny Tea - Aberdeen Square — Restaurant in Richmond

Loved the Shiny Tea at the international village location, but they closed down. I was initially excited to give this location a try, but what I ended up with was a letdown.

The barista was sloppy with my tealato as the toppings were all on one side, and it was bare on the other. There is one topping I always ordered at the now closed international village location, and I'm not sure if this location or chain switched suppliers, but it tasted very odd and it's not good way. As someone who worked in a similar job, I don't require minimum or near minimum wage baristas to be happy, bubbly, and enthusiastic, but I would like it if they made it look like there was some effort put in making the items at least to a passing standard. Even just drizzling a topping recklessly around the tealato is better than dumping it on one side near the edge of the cup.

The milk tea was either sitting for a while or poorly made as it tasted like a generic sweet drink that is arguably worse than the bottled milk tea that you can purchase in asian supermarkets. If milk tea could taste stale, that's probably how I would describe it. The international village location always had a nice taste of tea that's noticeable and tasted fresh. The quality here took a nosedive, at least it did during my visit.

I like that this location is surrounded by great shops, which made visiting an enjoyable experience. I would visit the area again for the shopping, but not for this Shiny...

I had Ginger Guiyuan (or Longyan) Tea, which was not okay at all. I didn’t think I ordered a good type of tea they specialize in making, so I gave it 3 stars (actually 2.5 stars). The time when I was hesitating which one I wanna order, one of their staff was friendly to show me their pineapple green tea and let me try it. Considering I had a tendency of getting a cold, I ordered the ginger guiyuan tea with 30 percentage of sugar. While ordering, the girl behind the counter was impatient and lazy to explain any questions, except informing that I cannot select the proportion of sugar for this drink. But for whatever reason I cannot recall clearly, later she asked me how much sugar I wanna choose between 30 and 70percent. Then I said 30percent. It turns out the drink is so bitter and spicy since the flavour of ginger covers all the other flavours. Besides, they didn’t put enough guiyuan and red dates, which made it quite weird. I just finished one third of it, and had to toss the rest. As previous comments mentioned, their cup is made of non...

We ordered the Tie Guan Yin ice-cream, the Tie Guan Yin milk tea with coffee jellies, and the Pu-erh tea with lychee popping pearls. The ice-cream and the milk tea were fine, but the coffee jellies were overly chewy. Is that why they cut the coffee jellies into mini cubes? The abundance of lychee popping pearls overwhelmed the tea that was already diluted.

The lady behind the counter was hiding behind the glass when we were at the counter. She did not initiate to greet us when we tried to order and she just stared at us. We needed to ask her can we order because we could not see her face. The she said yes. Also, they should not let just one worker in on a Sunday afternoon. Therefore, we waited for a long time for our drinks while there was a...