Pearls Bubble Tea Reading — Restaurant in England

[EDIT] On subsequent visits my experience was different. They did not offer any free topping to substitute tapioca balls when they ran out of them. So you were forced to add an extra topping (paid) or pay for a full drink with no tapioca balls. Didn't like the practice. Furthermore, when available, tapioca balls in this place tend to taste a little gritty as if they were less than fresh. If you prefer other type of toppings like popping balls, this may not be an issue, but as I always have the same toppings this makes me less inclined to come back [EDIT].

I like this place. Bubble tea tends to be expensive, so I think this place is ok by bubble tea standards.

The staff is very nice but overworked. They have a lot of Deliveroo orders, so even if there is no line of people waiting to order you might need to wait.

I would not recommend going a couple of hours before closing as they tend to run out of things. Still, there are so many options, it is easy to find a replacement. I liked the taste of my tea, but I must admit my taste in bubble tea is not very sophisticated. The tapioca balls ware nice, but a little less chewy and fresh than other shops. I believe this shop has the toughest boba pearls compared to other shops in Reading. If you really like the traditional tapioca balls, other shops may be better.

I wished they had cheesefoam as an option to add as topping. Also, some toppings are offered as an extra but can only be paired with a couple of flavours. Regardless, the shop has a lot of interesting flavours not available in other shops. They also have a loyalty stamp card and the staff is very friendly. I wasn't sure what one of the special drinks had and the person working clearly...

Price is decent, quality is below average. If i was rating the quality on its own its a 1 out of 5.

Yes in the photo you see what appears to be a ball of tapioca that is completely stuck together.

In ddition you can always tell a good quality bubble tea by the taste of the tapioca, as soon as it has a firm and somewhate harder coating to chew into you know it is not fresh, unfortunately this was the case here.

The "green tea" is there actually any in there or is it literally a dash of a poor quality green tea, not even remotely tasted in the drink.

There a levels to bubble tea and this isnt upto the mark...

I really wanted to like this place, but it was such a disappointment. The bubble tea tasted watery and overly sweet, and the tapioca pearls were either hard in the middle or mushy on the outside — clearly not fresh. I waited nearly 20 minutes for my drink even though there were only a couple of people in line, and when I asked about my order, the staff were dismissive and unhelpful. The shop didn’t feel very clean either, with sticky displays and spilled drinks left unattended. Definitely not worth the price — there are much better bubble tea spots in Reading. Won’t be...