ALittle Tea

Irvine’s Arbor Village Center certainly doesn’t lack for tea shops: 7 Leaves, Lollicup, TP Tea, and even Sunmerry Bakery offer drinks there, while Heytea and Wushiland are just across the street. So the October 2025 opening of Taiwanese/Chinese chain ALittle Tea in this space was only half-surprising: Founded as 50 Lan in Taiwan, the one-time juice stand evolved into a tea shop in 1997, expanded to become an iconic boba chain in Taiwan, then rebranded for further expansion in and beyond China as ALittle Tea / KOI Thé. Now sporting thousands of locations (almost all outside the United States), the chain is known today for inexpensive drinks and BB-sized small boba. After opening three stores in LA County, a franchise took over the former Champion Food shop in Irvine, directly across from the city’s oldest remaining Lollicup.

Although our first experience at ALittle Tea wasn’t entirely negative, the overall service and vibe were among the least impressive we’ve encountered at any Orange County tea shop, and we’ve visited a ton of them; our second and third visits were somewhat better. Minimally decorated using TVs, touchscreens, and a couple of large illuminated signs, the store’s industrial kitchen-like space is mostly consumed by a single long counter where drinks are ordered, assembled, and placed for pickup with minimal frills for customers – Cotti Coffee, but with a greater focus on boba and jellies. Once your order is placed, you either awkwardly stand around next to the counter or go outside, in either case waiting roughly 10 minutes for drinks to be ready.

If you watch the assembly line at work, you’ll see employees drop toppings into cups, followed by large spoonfuls of simple syrup and ice cubes, finishing with pre-made tea pours before sealing and cleaning off each cup with a towel. We placed our first order with an employee who brusquely said that there was no way to serve us the menu item we selected, a matcha lemon freeze, then didn’t offer or explain topping options for the drinks we picked instead. Subsequent orders from a touchscreen turned out to be easier and better; there are two of them inside, and you can use your smartphone, as well. Lots of the finished drinks sitting on the counter appeared to have been ordered online for pickup.

Only when we tried one of the touchscreens did we begin to understand ALittle Tea’s appeal: The BB-like “small pearls,” full-sized boba, pudding, coffee jelly, and tea jelly are included for free with drinks, and you can choose as few or as many as you want for most of the teas, which is a fairly amazing deal given the sub-Class 302 price point. That said, ALittle Tea’s matcha lemon freeze comes only with tea jelly, and other drinks have one or more included toppings by default.