Boba Quest: Breaktime Tea

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in BobaQuest

tagged boba, bobaquest

As part of Boba Quest 2025 🧋, I'm trying and reviewing a new boba shop each week.

I'm on vacation this week in San José, California, so I'm taking a break from Boba Quest — just kidding, of course I wanted to review another boba shop.

Back in October 2019 I was the executive editor of the Spartan Daily, San José State's student newspaper, when we published our "Boba Bloom" issue. It discussed the financial and health impacts of boba, profiled an alumnus who started their own shop, and most importantly, reviewed and ranked multiple boba shops around campus.

The winner? Breaktime Tea, at 110 East San Fernando St. It's about a block away from the VTA light rail Paseo de San Antonio station, which is accessible using the Blue and Green lines.

To this day, Breaktime still has that ranking prominently displayed for students to see that yes, they are (or were) the best.

A printed newspaper with the headline TEA TASTE TEST and boba shop menu screens in the background
Aside from a small tear, the newspaper print has held up. The digital version will be easier to read though.

Somehow it's already been five years since that issue was printed, but I wanted to see how things were today.

I asked for what I had always gotten: a lychee green milk tea with boba. They actually didn't have it on the menu, only advertising a lychee green tea (i.e. no milk) but when I talked to one of the employees, they said it was only recently changed, and they could still make the old drink for me.

Two boba drinks, one on the left is a green milk tea, and on the right is a orange-ish clear drink
Lychee green milk tea on the left, and a mango mojito with lychee jelly (not reviewed) on the right.
  • Boba: 4/4 the boba was perfect, it had the ideal consistency and right amount of sweetness. The tea also comes with small lychee fruit bits, which is just icing on top of the cake.
  • Tea: 4/4 lychee is one of my favorite fruits, but it's rare to find a place that offers it as a milk tea. Apparently Breaktime no longer fits in that category, but this was exactly what I wanted.
  • Bonus: 1/1 the ambiance and experience is really nice, I've spent enough time there drinking boba and chatting with friends.
  • Consistency: 1/1 I had intended for the consistency point to be awarded after a shop gets a 9/10 score, but given that I've been drinking here for 5+ years, I'm going to make an exception. I was genuinely stunned that it tasted basically the exact same from what I remember when I was a college student.

Total: 10/10. Breaktime earns our first 10/10 score! I'm not surprised, my experience with them as a student was always top-notch and I'm really glad to see it continue.

I'll be back in New York City next week, and am planning to kick-off March with a review from within the five boroughs.

P.S. I'm working on a better website to showcase these reviews, if you want a sneak preview. I still need to improve some things like the mobile view and no-JavaScript fallbacks, but any feedback would be welcome.