Ding Cafe Rockville — Restaurant in Rockville

TL;DR: waste of $25

Just had a super-disappointing experience here, which was surprising. I live nearby and come here on occasion, and wanted to take my young son to have his very first bubble tea treat (and treat my spouse too, who hasn’t had boba since high school). I grew up on the West Coast and got boba all the time, so it’s not like I don’t know what I’m doing when I try to order. Literally all three of our drinks were a bust.

First, I wanted to order a caffeine free boba for my son. After some back-and-forth looking for a caffeine free option, I settled on the strawberry yogurt drink with lychee jelly, a classic. I was then told that I couldn’t customize the sugar below 50%, because it was pre-mixed. Whatever. When the drink came out, it was in a paper coffee cup, which kind of defeats the whole purpose of getting boba for a little kid. I don’t know if they didn’t put very much lychee jelly in, but my son was not pulling up any of the “candy,” and couldn’t see it, so I asked if they could pour it in a clear cup - I was told that the yogurt separates, so the drink wouldn’t be “visually appealing.” I said that I totally understood, and would just shake the drink, but the staff member’s uncomfortable silence, and non-response made it very clear that they would not be able to accommodate that.

My spouse’s drink was a wintermelon milk tea; instead, we got a wintermelon green tea. The cashier said they must have misheard me, but seemed extremely reluctant to want to fix it, which was disappointing.

I just ordered a Vietnamese coffee, and asked for 30% sweet. I was told that the drink is entirely premixed, so I couldn’t alter the sweetness from 50%. It’s disappointing to be charged $5.75 for something that’s premixed, particularly because Vietnamese coffee is actually pretty easy to make? Unfortunately, there’s no condensed milk flavor in the Vietnamese coffee - a beverage I’ve ordered many times before at many different places, and don’t think it’s unreasonable to think would taste like very strong coffee and condensed milk.

Finally, I asked where I could enter my phone number so that I could get my loyalty points for this transaction, and was told by the cashier that there was no way to add the points to my account, even though I was not asked or prompted to enter my phone number prior to the transaction.

All in all, to spend nearly $25 (I still tipped 20%) for three drinks that weren’t really what we were looking for, and to lose out on points towards a future purchase, was not a fun Friday treat for anyone in the family. If you can go anywhere else for bubble...

Feb 2022 Good service, but disappointing bubble tea. The place itself was clean and average size for a bubble tea place. A small table set off to the right holds Grubhub orders. There were dividers all along the back counter and the staff all wore masks.

We got a variety of milk teas since we were curious, but they were all rather disappointing, especially when compared to Gong Cha. We got the Strawberry, Taro, Hazelnut, and Tiramisu milk teas with 0% sugar. Except the hazelnut, which uses a syrup and therefore has a set sugar level. Note we always get 0% sugar at a new place to check out the original flavor of the teas.

The best one was the strawberry, which tasted half strawberry, half bitter black tea. I was very surprised the strawberry wasn't pink at all, even though it had some strawberry chunks. The taro had a faint taro taste and mainly tasted like almond. Very disappointing. The hazelnut had a definite nutty taste but a slightly artificial aftertaste. Not too bad, but still there. Finally, the tiramisu tasted like stale chocolate (yes, STALE). Now tiramisu usually does have chocolate on top, but it's not the main flavor of tiramisu. For the staleness, I think maybe they tried to add a coffee flavor but totally failed. Note you can choose the type of tea for the tiramisu: black, green, or oolong. We went with the oolong, but maybe the green tea would have tasted better. Either way, very disappointing. The bubble tea at Gong Cha tastes much better.

Service was quick and friendly enough. The lady seemed a bit exasperated when I asked her to repeat a question, but I can give her a pass since it was a late Saturday evening. A quick note on the bag: the middle of the bag was notched to provide a snug fit for the bubble tea cups. Very interesting.

Most likely...

There tea and boba are delicious, but the wait time is appalling. I’ve been to this tea shop twice and each time I’ve had to wait around thirty minutes for my bubble tea. The first time I went, I ordered 8 bubble teas for a group so I could understand some extended wait time, especially on a busy day, but the second time I visited, I only ordered a single Hokkaido Oolong Milk Tea with Golden Boba. Curious about how long the wait would be this time I started the stopwatch on my phone as soon as the order ticket came out of the machine. It took a whopping 28 minutes and 55 seconds for me to receive my bubble tea... I honestly don’t think I’ll be paying Ding Tea a visit for the next couple of months which is very sad because I actually really enjoy the taste of the tea and texture of the boba here. I’d say it’s my second favorite boba tea shop. Hopefully in my time away, they will be able to get their timing worked out as they just recently moved into the area. They do have like 6-10 people working on tea at any given time so I don’t know what the problem is beside maybe efficiency / communication between the workers. In the meantime I’ll be going to my favorite tea place: Bubbles & Tea. I will be writing a review for them shortly, so if you’re interested please go check it out! Happy drinking!

*I’ll update my review if I see improvements at...