Junbi - Katy — Restaurant in Katy

TL;DR Junbi is a glorified boba store. For a place that "specializes" in matcha, they could do so much better.

I'll start off with the positives: Ambience and atmosphere is friendly and warm Service is as it should be

Negatives: For a place that advertises using "premium" matcha and even sells their own matcha powders, the drinks were very lacking. The matcha in itself was bitter and almost seems watery. Although matcha has different taste profiles and everyone has their preferences, the bitterness was just that - bitter. There was no depth to it and there was no other notable flavors. It was a bad type of bitter, not the good kind. Once I mixed the latte to try it, I found that the proportions were too milky. It completely drowned out the matcha and I barely got any flavor from the matcha. It reminded me of drinking a matcha latte from Summer Moon (which is disappointing). This was with the ceremonial matcha upgrade mind you. The sugar levels are surprising. I tried the hojicha latte and the mango matcha latte both adjusted to half sweetness yet I found it too sweet for my tastes. To me, the half sweetness should be the regular. I do not even want to find out how sweet regular is. I am not entirely sure if this is true, but apparently they prepare their matcha through a machine? I do not know what that entirely entails, but I assume that means they do not whisk the matcha made-to-order. That in itself is a red flag and I do not care whatsoever if it speeds up the turn-around time. I am willing to wait for good matcha and I am sure with enough practice, the staff can prepare drinks just as quickly.

Conclusion: With all things considering, I would say this place is all talk. There is an insurmountable amount of marketing from Junbi. Not saying that marketing is bad, but what is there to show for it? I believe the reason why their matcha lattes are ridden with so much milk and sugar is to mask the subpar quality of their matcha or their lack of proper preparation. For a place whose name translates to "preparation", it boggles my mind that they do not even whisk the matcha made-to-order (if this is the case). For all I know the matcha powder in itself is decent or even good, but why would I want to see that for myself if their own stores can't even make...

I’m so disappointed. I’ve tried Junbi twice before this third strike. ❌

The first time was the week they opened, in fact they invited me (but they never followed up on my insta so I went on my own) and the matcha cold brew was awful. Zero matcha taste, extremely watery. Just really bad 😩

Second time I went with my husband and my sister and we all tried different drinks, the best one was the strawberry matcha which my husband got, that one was the only one that tasted better but my sister got the guava matcha which was trash and I got a regular matcha latte with the same overly water down taste. None of these drinks had that creamy matcha consistency. The strawberry one was good because the strawberry carried the flavor, not so much for the matcha… 😢

Now sadly here I am wanting to try their matcha soft serve on my THIRD try. They take our order for the soft serve and tell us it will be a bit of a wait because the matcha side of the soft serve wasn’t ready yet, ok fine no problem we can wait. We wait about 10 minutes only for them to tell us they ran out of matcha. Ok….i could understand that for closer to the end of the day but around 2PM??? Of course we were frustrated but what can we do? It is what it is, so we get a refund… or so we thought. I looked at the receipt given to me and they refunded someone else’s order so I had to call them since I noticed after we left 😒

This is just overall poorly managed. It’s a shame, we don’t have that many matcha spots here in the Houston area and to have three poor experiences back to back is incredibly frustrating. So sadly I cannot recommend this place based on poor service and poor quality drinks. I think three tries is...

My boyfriend and I tried Junbi twice. The first time we tried it I had gotten a mango matcha latte with less sweet and a hojicha with less sweet. I thought the mango matcha was extremely sweet and decided that maybe I should've gone with 0% sugar for my personal preference. The hojicha in my boyfriend's opinion was too sweet, milky, and didn't have the right depth that a hojicha should have.

We decided to give Junbi a second chance a week later because I believe that every place deserves a second chance

This time around I had gotten a hot strawberry matcha latte with 0% sweetness AND IT WAS STILL SWEET. It was a bit better this time because I could actually taste the flavor of the matcha, but the sweetness was overpowering. My boyfriend got a matcha latte...replaced it with ceremonial matcha shots and less sweet. The sweetness was perfect but unfortunately it was milky and lacking in matcha flavor. It was almost on par with summer moon's matcha for comparison... which is not good.

Overall, I am disappointed in Junbi especially with the amount of promotion hyping the place up with high quality ingredients. In my opinion, this place does not live up to the standards that they made for themselves. There are other places in the greater Houston area that are just as passionate about matcha AND it reflects in their drinks. This is coming from someone who has made matcha at home with brands such as Marukyu koyamaen, Ippodo, and Naoki. I believe that Junbi has the potential to be better with changes in ratio between matcha,...