Cha for Tea (Long Beach) 7.22.14

Yesterday, I had a work meeting and since I've decided this week is a "stay-cation --> vacation" week, we met across the street from campus instead of on campus, at Cha for Tea  in Long Beach.  Cha for Tea is a local chain tea shop that serves boba milk tea (and other teas) as well as a small menu of appetizers, entrees & noodle soups.

My two favorite things here are the crispy chicken and the fried dumplings (yeah, yeah, the reducing the gluten consumption is not going so well here), both of which are often being handed out during lunchtime as a sample by a gracious employee seeking to capitalize on passing food traffic.  Yesterday, I had the green tea salad with fried dumplings:

Green tea salad with fried dumplings

The salad was fine. I liked the dressing (green tea sesame ginger) a lot--it's a thicker vinaigrette that goes well with the greens and I'm really glad that they use a spring mix instead of the romaine or leaf lettuce that's pictured on the menu. The crispy dumplings were their normal awesomeness with crispy hot goodness and lots of meat (ground chicken). All in all, it was a fine meal.  Would I go out of my way to come eat here regularly? Probably not, but it's very convenient to campus and the salad made for a much prettier picture than the dumplings on a plate by themselves so yes, a fine lunch, but nothing to necessarily write home about. 

I also ordered the almond milk black tea which is there biggest seller and is usually one of my favorite drinks of all time: 

Almond milk black tea

For some reason, yesterday, either my tastebuds were slightly off or the milk tea itself just wasn't as good as usual.  This is actually great news because, seriously, I need to stop paying over $4 for tea. Maybe it was just the fact that I didn't get a cool heart bendy straw to cap off my experience.  Whatever it was, I will probably go back and have another milk tea at some point, but maybe I'll ask for a little less sweetness as yesterday just seemed too sweet and not almond creamy enough.  I probably should have just asked for an adjustment, but I have a martyr complex so I thought I'd just suffer through it. 

Overall, I like Cha for Tea, but I'm not crazy about it. It's conveniently located, but unless I need somewhere to meet someone, I'm more likely to make some tea in my office or go to Thiptara for lunch where I pay the same price but feel happier about the quality to value ratio.