Jin Tea Shop
Gorgeous bottled teas from Pasadena, briefly also in a Garden Grove restaurant
Until a second location opened in Garden Grove, Pasadena’s Jin Tea Shop struck us as a long drive from Orange County just for colorful tea. But we never forgot about the stunning images we saw online, and it was on our “to visit” list if we were ever in the area. Then Jin opened a location inside Boiling Point, a Taiwanese hot pot restaurant in Garden Grove. From a counter at the restaurant’s front, this Jin served a full menu of hot and cold Taiwanese teas, plus egg puffles.
Skipping the basics, which include milk teas, hot teas, and fruit teas – a handful available with pudding, jelly, or brown sugar boba – we ordered three of their speciality teas: Love Potion (substantially passion fruit juice topped with butterfly pea flower tea), seasonal Dragon Power (dragonfruit with tons of finely chopped lychee), and Butterfly Pea Flower Lemonade (a lemonade-heavy Arnold Palmer). Each arrived in one of their distinctive bottles, looking every bit as colorful as the photos we’d seen online.
Each bottle comes chilled using a chunk of nicely chewable ice, and they’re really eye-catching – especially the all-but-glowing Love Potion – until you shake them to properly mix the flavors. We skipped the puffles, expecting that we’d have another occasion to drop in and check them out.
Although we’d found the entire experience a little weird – order drinks, then wait for them at an empty restaurant table – the people who served us were friendly, and the drink prices were totally fine. But we were there early in Jin’s run, and other people had experiences that weren’t quite as awesome.
The Garden Grove store-in-a-store closed in 2024, after roughly six months, following complaints that the drink quality and service inside Boiling Point were below the original location’s standards. Jin can still be experienced in Pasadena.
Stats
Price: $
Service: Counter
Open Since: 2015 (LA), 2024 (OC)
Closed: 2024
Addresses
12145 Valley View St. Unit 103
Garden Grove, CA 92845
Instagram: @jinteashop