Ocha Time Tea & Creamery — Restaurant in Charlotte

I'm rating more than 1 star for presentation. TLDR notes: Stale food product (Pirouette wafer). Vanilla ice cream trying to pass for another flavor. Fingers being placed in a container prior to serving (I intercepted before it was used).

I recently visited with my partner. Having found out there was a taiyaki ice cream spot in Charlotte made me ecstatic. The store had recently renovated and I waited for them to reopen.

A portion of their menu was unavailable and the clerk mentioned both their taiyaki (fish shaped waffle batter cone) and matcha soft serve were unavailable, but would be the following day. No big deal. It was my main reason for visiting, but I figured I'd try something else. We both picked curled ice cream.

I was told they could still do matcha as curled ice cream. My mistake was not asking if it was prepared ice cream. The clerk printed labels to put on cups, and began reaching her fingers inside mine to grab it. I asked the clerk to not use the cup, in which I was looked at oddly and asked if I wanted gloves used. "You can. Please don't put your fingers in the cup."

I debating on if we should leave, but I didn't want to make a scene. My partner chose curled coffee ice cream. Coffee was brewed on their machine, mixed with milk, and then rolled into ice cream. I only saw the finishing touches on my dessert, which featured skewered and torched marshmallows, cut strawberries, and pastel colored mochi pieces.

When I tried my dessert it tasted like vanilla ice cream dusted with matcha powder. I've done this at home with a packet of matcha I needed for something unrelated, so this tasted exactly the same and was nothing special. My partner's dessert included a very stale Pirouette wafer. The one nice thing about his dessert was how it had looked and there was actual coffee in it. That's about it. You're paying for the novelty of it. The rolled ice cream itself feels like if you had a slightly softed popsicle. It looks nice, but you might just want regular ice cream.

We were debating on going back to try the taiyaki, but we're going to pass. I can't really...

What i ordered: rolled ice cream ocha matcha + soft serve matcha on the fish cone.

I really wanted to like this place. It is because i really want you guys to succeed that i write this review.

2 stars for: The location is great, there is a lot of variety and the fish cone was really nice and crispy. There wasn’t a waiting line..

Here is the bad part:

The rolled ice was very bland. There was no sweetness and it tasted like milk with matcha powder. The worse part is that the rolled ice was not creamy, the ice cream was flaky. On my picture you can see there is a lot of gap between each roll of ice cream. I almost feel cheated because they could have fitted another roll in there. They didn't roll it properly and ended up throwing away A LOT ice cream. Final thing: My order came with a toasted marshmallow but the lady didn't toast it enough because the torch wasn't working. Get a working torch. It was lukewarm marshmallows. The marshmallows barely changed color. If you need a reference for a successful rolled ice look up "below 10 ice cream" in New York City.

Soft serve ice cream: The fish cone was nice but the match soft serve was very watery. The lady even had to make another one because it was falling apart. My guess is that either the machine was not cold enough or the soft serve is made with too much water.

Customer service: the front cashier/ desk lady was very nice; however, there is so much tension between staff. This is what happened: the front lady asked one of her coworker how long it was going to take for the fish cones to be ready. The coworker said "its done. " The front desk maybe didn't hear and said "how long is it gonna take? " and the coworker yelled back something like "ITS DONE" just the tone was very aggressive. The cashier was even the one that had to serve the ice cream cone for us. No one was smiling and i had the impression everybody was miserable...

Boba is absolutely unmatched.

HOWEVER.

Every time I go there's a whole lot of things not available. For instance, there's cheese foam. But I've tried it once and didn't get a chance to get it again ever since as they're constantly out.

What also just drives me crazy is that first they kept changing the schedule to progressively less convenient options, and now they just don't abide by it anyways. Every time I try they're closed even though they shouldn't be. Posting a photo of the current schedule if anybody wants to try their luck.

Most people working there that I've encountered aren't very knowledgeable. They seem to have even less clue than I do about some of the more obscure things on the menu like "Thai milk" or "winter melon". Once I walked in on people having lunch I guess and my presence was not even acknowledged for a while, they kept chatting etc. I'm not trying to deny people their lunch time. A simple "I'm gonna be with you shortly" would have been nice.

On the weekends the waiting time is insane.

I'd say it's not worth going out of your way considering all of the above, but if you get a chance, boba for sure is...