FAN CHA — Restaurant in Minneapolis

Located inside the restaurant named Pagoda (dim sum/Chinese food restaurant?). They do not have a separate entrance. It's located on campus and there's paid street parking in front of the restaurant. You just wait outside/in your car for them to call you as the hallway to order/pick up is extremely short and narrow.

Ordering: It's a bit cumbersome to order so if you're going to call in your order, do it way way in advance... like before you even get dressed to leave your house because it takes a good minute for the drinks. I think you can order online to make it easier, but I'm from out of town so can't comment on it.

4 stars from my fiancé for his matcha milk foam black tea. He expected boba but didn't explicitly ask me sooo no boba for him. 1 star for my salted milk foam black tea and 1.5 stars for his drink... maybe. He really enjoyed his drink and said it was the best of two, black tea and matcha. I personally couldn't really distinguish any matcha flavor and I LOVE matcha. Didn't adjust sugar (couldn't see the adjustments available from the menu taped to the window) and only asked for less ice. Surprisingly not sweet at all, but also ultra weak tea flavor. The tea tasted like it was fresh brewed and didn't have enough time to steep.

Staff was 5 stars - super friendly but it just took a long time for the drinks, I probably waited 20 minutes. Maybe the milk foam is made to order? The girl was super apologetic and running...

Cashiers were extremely rude when I asked for a remake because I ordered two teas they were very watery and didn’t come With any of the toppings showed on the menu she then tried to get me To pay another 16$ for the three teas I already paid for because she said I already took a small sip and she said “it would come out of her paycheck” which makes absolutely no sense because even if I didn’t drink it all you have to completely throw it away by law I’m 7 months pregnant and it was very frustrating paying for two teas that couldn’t be remade and the very rude and inaccurate answers because for whatever reason they didn’t just want to Remake my drinks I paid 16$ for on top of that they weren’t even paying attention to the man sniffing some sort of substance in the corner which was very unsafe I should’ve just walked out when I seen that but their menu looked very good...

As a tea enthusiast and a former boba tea barista who knows the ins and outs of boba tea, I'm loving this place.

The interior is minimalistic and clean. I ordered the ginger milk tea with boba, and was very pleasantly surprised. I had forgotten to ask for it less sweet, so I was assuming it would be overly sweet when I had the first sip, but it was perfect! The boba were a little firm for my taste, but that's more of a personal thing than an actual problem.

The only suggestion I would have for this place is to list everything that goes in the drinks on the menu. The ginger milk tea had some crispy ginger bits in it for what I'm assuming is added crunch and flavor, and while I thankfully did end up liking it, I would have liked knowing it would be in there before I ordered it. Otherwise, I'm really liking this place, and it'll be my go-to for boba...