Yaya Tea — Restaurant in New York

I've been to the other Yaya Tea many times and it's really lovely so I was excited to see this one and decided to stop in. I ordered their takoyaki, spam onigiri, lychee tree drink and tealuxe latte. Both drinks I ordered were large size, no ice, 25% sugar. The lychee tree came out correctly, but it was very bland -- I could barely taste the lychee or strawberry, and it tasted like they just used plain water instead of white tea. Pretty disappointing, 1/5 stars. The tealuxe latte came out as a small drink, and not a latte. He heard wrong on the size so at least I wasn't charged for the large. I asked why my drink had no milk in it, since the picture clearly showed a milk tea. I was told there wasn't supposed to be milk in it (sorry, but it's a latte -- how does that not have milk? And the picture on the wall shows milk tea, not clear tea, so I'm not sure how any of that makes sense?). Apparently there's a non-latte version without milk, which was not what I ordered. They offered to remake my drink so that it was the correct order, and it still came out the wrong size, and they put ice in it ( which I had originally asked not to included). I had to go up a third time to ask to have the ice taken out. The drink itself was disgusting and even more bland than the lychee tree drink. There's no rose flavor, no osmanthus flavor, barely any milk flavor (kind of like milk tea if you got a ton of ice and waited until the ice all melted), and some weird tea-esque aftertaste. There was barely any sweetness, maybe 5%? Certainty not 25%. Seriously, one of the worst teas I've had -- 0/5 stars. The takoyaki was warm and the taste was fine (far from amazing, but compared to the drinks they were great), so 4/5. The spam onigiri was at least of the same quality of the food that I get at the other Yaya Tea I usually go to, with a good amount of spam in the middle. 5/5 stars. Overall, I'm not sure what happened here but it was definitely an unpleasant shock that this is the same chain as the other Yaya Tea, which I really like. I'm for sure never coming back to this one; I've been to the other one multiple times and they consistently have good food and drinks. I'd recommend going to the other one for sure, it's disappointing that this one shares...

So, I'm a long time customer of YaYa's... I've been to every location in New York City and can say with all honesty that I cannot find another bubble tea shop that has the quality this one brings consistently. On occasion, I have been disappointed, usually due to the amount of sugar added. I find that the sweetness varies from place to place (for example, the dekalb locations 75 percent registers like the 50 percent at the chrystie street location,meaning the same sweetness level has a higher perceived sweetness from location the location) This does not bother me, as I've learned which locations go sweeter on the drinks and adjust the level accordingly.

On to the onigiri -

If you are in the mood for a snack and want to feel good about your purchase (think, I could have had McDonald's.but instead I'm eating rice and meat(and veggies in some instances) Highly recommend the spam onigiri, it is my favorite ! As well as the yaya chicken, chicken, takoyaki onigiri.

On a side note, avoid juju's deli on smith street... Another onigiri/bubble tea spot...like it was so bad I felt the need to put a whole irrelevant review in with my YaYa's review.

TL;DR : Get up and go get some f**g YaYa's. You won't regret it. Order a "small white tea with peach flavor and lychee jelly topping" and a spam...

Pros and Cons from our first time trying Yaya Tea - delivered.

We got the fried chicken, japanese, plum, and salmon onigri and for a drink, we got the lychee mango white tea with lychee popping boba.

Pros: The onigiri (rice balls) were still warm upon arrival They tasted fresh and were overall pleasant We got the small onigiri to taste and they were surprisingly pretty big The portion of the fillings were also good The rice itself was tasty Prices were all between $3:50-$4:50 each

Cons: Overall, the onigiri didn’t have much flavor and the fillings didn’t make much of a difference. The fried chicken wasn’t crispy at all The plum was overly sour The japanese onigiri’s seaweed’s artificial green coloring made the egg and imitation crab completely green as well so it wasn’t appetizing to look at and didn’t taste great either. The drink ($7) was artificial as well unfortunately with no hint of real mango or lychee in it. It could have been any flavor really and you wouldn’t know the difference bc it’s just your typical artificial powdered drink mix.

So, will we order again from here? Probably not. Well, I don’t think I’d mind getting a plain rice onigiri if I was in the mood for it and nearby, but that’s...