Fantasia- My favorite tapioca tea place!

Fantasia Tea & Coffee
10933 N Wolfe Rd
Cupertino, CA 95014
(408) 865-1689

As I briefly mentioned in my Tea Station post, my favorite tapioca tea place is Fantasia.  This is a chain in Taiwan and has multiple locations in the Bay Area.  Unfortunately, it is not in San Diego.  So when I go home, it is one of my "must go to" places.  So why do I love Fantasia so much?

1. Real ingredients!!  Fantasia uses real ingredients in their different tea drinks.  For instance, if you order a taro milk tea, it's not bright purple!  Instead it's a milky white with lots of little pieces of taro inside.  A lychee frost has pieces of lychee instead.  This goes for all the different flavors. 

Here is a picture of a hot taro milk tea:

2. A taste of Taiwan.  They have drinks here that I have only seen in Taiwan.  There is a special handwritten menu that has a lot of drinks I don't see anywhere else. 

3. Taro balls!!! They have taro balls as an option instead of tapioca pearls.  Taro balls are wonderful and usually found as a shaved ice topping in Taiwan.  They are made of taro paste and are chewy and slightly sweet.

4. Perfect tapioca pearls. Their pearls have just the right consistency of chewiness and sweetness.

This place is usually pretty full.  I see a mixed crowd of both young and old here, something I don't usually see in other tea places.  They have a few tables inside and outside you can sit at.  While there is often a line, they are really fast with the drinks.  Usually my drink is ready by the time I've finished paying for my order. 

Fantasia was out of the taro balls when I went on this last visit.  I usually like to get hot taro milk tea with taro balls.  The hot taro milk is made with hot frothy milk. Yum.  Here is a close-up of the taro milk:

On my most recent visit, I discovered a new drink that I now love.  Green mango Ai Yu.  The drink is sweet and sour, the taste of preserved green mango.  The drink also contains ai yu, a kind of jelly-like substance that I was introduced to on my last visit to Taiwan.  The jelly doesn't have much taste, but is supposed to be good for you.  It tastes a lot better when mixed with the green mango flavored tea. 

I think the drink is very pretty and has a layered look.  The first layer is the green mango tea with the ai yu jelly.

Then there is a layer of tapioca pearls and finally at the bottom, is a layer of green mango pieces.  This is a yummy drink and now on my list of drinks when I go.

Some other drinks I enjoy are the iced taro milk tea and also the lychee frost (tastes like lychee ice cream!)

I usually have trouble finishing a tapioca pearl drink.  But when I go to Fantasia, I have no problems finishing at all.  I could drink them all day. I usually get two at a time, and finish them within an hour or two. Oh Fantasia, I miss you!