Tiki Tea — Restaurant in Portland

Tiki Tea is a great place!! The drinks are made with no powders or artificial flavors! The tea drinks are loose-leaf teas that are brewed for your order. The menu is unique and unlike other boba shops and It is proudly owned by POC! There are sugar levels that you can choose from and the drinks taste great with the regular amount of sugar! There is minimal toppings which are fresh and tasty! I highly recommend the sea salt jasmine drink or the fruit teas (that are blended like a slush)! The owner also makes these Japanese cheesecakes and matcha swiss rolls. Sometimes every week the owner will have a special dessert you can purchase. Tiki Tea is definitely one of my go-to...

We’ve gone to Tiki Tea a few times over the years. One of our earliest visits featured a mango smoothie the kids went crazy for, and decent milk tea. Then on three occasions we tried going with a car full of excited kids only to find it closed during posted hours, which was a bummer. Then just this week on an unrelated trip to Alberta we noticed Tiki Tea was open and stopped in. Mango smoothies were out. The taro drink was tasteless paste. The boba in the pina colada smoothie were really chewy and unpleasant. And bathroom was locked. When I asked whether the barista could open it I just got “sorry no I can’t” with no explanation. Next time I’ll try...

P L A S T I C S

Plastic straws, plastic cups, plastic lids...and not just your average single use disposable cups and lids but industrial strength, super thick ones. I don't want to know the resources that goes into making those things for 20 minutes of tea drinking, omg.

As far as the tea goes, it's $5 for some black tea with milk and suger added, so I dunno, to each their own I guess. It's cool that they have 'real' ingredients but that should be the norm and should be expected of any establishment- certainly not an idea so profoundly innovative that it's worth a 5 star experience.

But srsly...bring your own cup because theirs should...