The only bubble tea franchise inside Oakridge Food Court in 2019

Food Quality
Atmosphere / Services
Reasonable Priced
Summary

Presotea is a Taiwanese bubble tea franchise. They have opened location throughout great Vancouver over the years. For some reason, Presotea remained the only bubble tea franchise in the Oakridge food court despite being one of the smaller bubble tea franchise in Vancouver.

Strength: Located conveniently in a mall

Weakness: Small cup for a large. Drinks are too sweet

Other Bubble Tea Station in Malls

• Peanut’s Bubble Tea (5 Stars)
• Choo Tea (2 Stars)
• Little Bean Tea Station (1.5 Stars)

The Oakridge Food Court

Presotea, Orange Julius and Starbucks are the only two stores that are in the middle of the Oakridge food court. It has a stand alone structure with a small foot print located near the Safeway surface parking lot. The store use wood as decoration to emphasize their pride of fresh brewed tea.

Left side of the store

This small space has everything essential to making tea. It seems like the tea are made with espresso machine at the back. There is also a cup sealing machine on the side. The green thick straw you see is just the color of packaging with clear straw inside.

Right side of the store

On the right side of the store, we have a processing area near the storage. There are also cups with cup-size samples. This is where we ordered our drinks. The staff was very friendly to me and provided very good service. She apologized for the wait time of making fresh tea, but I still received my tea quite quickly.

Customization

Like most of the bubble tea places, Presotea also offer customization for ice and sugar level. They made a chart to demonstrate that. If you ordered “no sugar”, then you are healthy, otherwise you’re not.

Deceiving long and narrow cup

Presotea uses one of the presentation techniques that I despise. My large milk tea was contained in a very narrow cup with the top having a diameter smaller than my palm.

Another thing that ticked me off a little is their menu does not indicate the price of the item. You get to find that out when you are asked to pay. I paid $7.04 for a large cup of milk tea.

Further to the narrow, tall cup containing less drink, the normal ice level drink contains a lot of ice. I finished my drink in 40 minutes and there were still approximately 1/4 cup of ice.

How everything tastes

Honestly speaking, this is not a good cup of bubble tea. I’m not just saying that because of the outrageous price. I would still have these exact comments if this cup only cost me $4.

The milk tea feels a little thin. I did not notice much taste of tea because the sweetness was too overwhelming at normal sugar level. There were 3 toppings included making it the “triple combo”. The yellowish curd is the puddings that was supposed to be soft and juicy. Instead, they were firm like jello with a sandy texture to indicate they are made of powdery. Grass jelly was softer but lacks herbal flavour. Tapioca pearls were the only thing acceptable in my drink. They don’t have much flavour but at least they are chewy.

604 Food Critic Assessment

I guess there are advantages of being an establishment with no similar stores nearby. That must be how Presotea was able to survive thus far. This tea station failed in all aspects of our review except for the service. I have not seen any bubble tea franchise do this bad. Customers paying for $7.04 per cup definitely deserve better. They can improve on either larger-sized drinks, cheaper price, more balanced flavour, or higher quality topping. Even if they only pick 2 items to improve, Presotea’s drink would be acceptable. For now, I cannot recommend them.

Menu

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How to get in touch

• Phone: (604) 559-5799
• Address: #F12 – 650 W41st Ave, Vancouver
• Hours: 9:30 am – 9:00 pm, Saturday Monday Tuesday 9:30 am – 7:00 pm Sunday 11:00 am – 6:00 pm