Brian Black Tea — Restaurant in Fremont

I give the place four-and-a-half stars. There is a very specific market for Brian Black Tea, and I'm not really it. This is for people who really know and love high-quality, high-end black tea. There are about six kinds of tea, served by itself, as a milk tea, or with "creama" (a milk foam/cheese), either hot or cold. You can select your sweetness level and ice level as well as add boba or creama. (For the record, the crema was the best milk foam I've ever had. The boba was average.) When I was there, they also had two specials including a Brown Sugar Milk (not tea). The menu is limited, but again, this is a specific market and if you're looking for lots of different fruity milk teas with four boba and topping options or Thai tea or smoothies, go to Tastetea or one of the many other places that cater to that. The tea was very good and clearly high quality. Something I loved is that the milk teas and the creama were made with actual milk, not non-dairy mix in. There was a long wait but I went very close to opening day, so they had a very long line and crew was new and taking particular care with each drink. Despite this, I fully expect the wait time to reduce significantly over the first month or so. The baristas were friendly and helpful even given the long line and the fact that they were clearly working hard. (Note: tip well. They really appreciated it and tips go to the employees, not the owners.) If you love and appreciate good black tea,...

Okay, I hate to say anything bad, but I truly hoped I would have liked this place.

Based on just the drinks, I'd give it three stars or even two. I got the calamansi black tea and I liked it, but it just didn't taste like calamansi at all. I got 25% sugar like I normally do at any place, but it tasted like 0% sugar. I didn't taste calamansi at all, I'd describe it like I was drinking a slightly less sweet honest kids juice with boba in it. My brother got the iron goddess milk tea and he said his tasted like water (also got 25% sugar) as if they forgot the milk in his milk tea. Although, there are no complaints about the boba. Overall, it was just mediocre.

Service: service was good, our cashier was very patient with us and saved my father's drink, telling him that the brown sugar milk was just milk and not milk tea lolol. Drinks came out quickly even though there was a decent amount of people there

Atmosphere: place is very clean, but there's only three small seating areas so not really a place to sit down and chat for awhile.

I do like how the place has all paper cups though. I really wish this place could've won me over, but it was sadly disappointing as much as I wanted...

Brian Black Tea has a nice modern aesthetic. I never seen a non-clear cup for a milk tea before so they stood out in that aspect.

Iron Goddess Tea 75% Sweetness and Grass Jelly: This was really good since you can taste the tea without it being too strong/bitter. I feel like the sweetness level was good but I get hints of a sweet aftertaste so maybe I'll try 50% sweetness next time. The grass jelly went well with the Iron Goddess Milk Tea but they gave too much so I felt like I was eating a dessert more than drinking a milk tea.

Assam With Oat Milk 100% Sweetness: We never had milk tea with oat milk before so this was the first time we tried it, and it just didn't taste right. Usually assam tea has a strong flavor but it didn't shine through this time. The drink had a more watery consistency than regular milk tea. Would not recommend it. The 100% sweetness wasn't bad either - tasted pretty close to standard...