CHAGEE Modern Teahouse — Restaurant in Torrance

Not sure what the hype is with this place. After hearing all about the one at century city and seeing that it opened in Torrance. Felt like we should try it, but what a disappointing experience. It replaced the old Starbucks, and I will say it’s beautiful.

For drinks, there are limited customization options. We got the roasted oolong tea latte. Just too much milk to tea ratio. The roasted tea barely comes through. Basically milk with a splash of tea.

Peach tea was decent. You can’t get less ice because the tea was supposed to be diluted with the ice. I don’t get, the tea isn’t even that strong.

Jasmine cruffin was pretty bad. Cruffin top was nice, the jam topping was unnecessary. The custard was gross, honestly it was a struggle to eat it. Jasmine doesn’t come through and it’s a poorly made pastry. You get the cruffin pastry on the outside and all of the custard inside. It’s not well balanced. You might as well get a cream puff elsewhere

Service was a weak point, we ordered a jasmine cruffin. Apparently it was supposed to be given to us when we paid, nope. When we got called for our drinks, we asked for our cruffin. Got a weird look before he went to confirm with the cashier. After a few minutes we got our drinks.

Their whole staff just seemed “lost”. From an outsiders perspective, it looks poorly ran and chaotic in the back.

I know Torrance has very limited options for good, tea, boba, milk tea, etc. but Chagee...

I think the new trendy milk tea that's hitting socal (mid 2025-ish) is one that is lightly creamy and mildly sweet but having a very fragrant aroma to it. Think of tea lattes. Chagee is that. This is not a place with an exhaustive menu for you to get taro milk teas and other unnatural, adventurous flavors. It's a very curated menu that focuses on quality brewed teas, not really relying on added flavors and sugar to make it taste like something. It might take a few tries to adapt to this "new" type of drink as it did for me, but know that there's not many of these shops where you can get these drinks, at least not at this time. My go to is their peach milk tea and occasionally the boya. I feel like it's pretty strong in terms of caffeine, and typically takes me two days to finish a drink since the default size is fairly large (a pretty...

I gave the place a try after seeing that they had opened their first store in Century City. There was a person standing near the store with samples too which made it a bit more enticing. They had sampled their green milk tea and cookie and they were both pretty good.

I ended up ordering the Roasted Black Milk Tea and enjoyes it. It came with a very thin straw with three holes. I want to assume its so you sip and savor it? Regardless, I actually enjoyed using the straw since it let me drink it slower than I usually drink my drinks.

Overall, I enjoyed it and am happy we have yet another tea place to add into my rotation in the South Bay. There didnt seem to be any "new store growing pains". I will definitely go back and give their other...