TeaRex Bubble Tea Cafe: Worth the Roar?

Jojo Beiza

A very modern touch to the new bubbly vibed cafe.

By Jojo Beiza, Staff Writer
Jan 14, 2019

Along side Chill Bubble Tea, Avalanche, and Joy Yee, a new bubble tea place has found its spot on Golf Road near Niles North this past summer– TeaRex.

Straight across a Nissan dealership, the parking lot of TeaRex seemed significantly empty as it only occupied two parked cars, not including my sister’s. As you leave the parking lot and walk closer to the door that beams with light shining through, you are welcomed with an “OPEN” rainbow neon sign. When you first walk into TeaRex Bubble Tea Cafe, you are hit with a wide and yellow wall busy with individual frames filled up with cartoon dinosaurs.

Unlike Avalanche and Chill Bubble Tea, TeaRex doesn’t strictly just have bubble tea for you to purchase. Although it is mostly beverages, they have the options from coffee, milk tea, fruit tea (hot or cold), regular ice blended bubble tea, multiple boba topping flavors, and lastly, waffles!
I ordered a cold raspberry fruit tea. I knew my regular sized tea would have some sort of black tea taste as on the menu it said “BLACK TEA BASED,” right to the side of the column that listed all the fruity flavors. It was just shockingly over powering the bitter raspberry flavoring. I wasn’t too disappointed with my beverage as I only paid four dollars for the decently sized cup. The price fit the purchase very well.
I also ordered a red velvet waffle. Not that I had a choice of many since the only other flavor was chocolate. Along with the waffle came a scoop of vanilla and chocolate ice cream, powdered sugar, and a little melting tower of whipped cream. This, in my eyes, seemed to be the highlight of the whole dish, as the waffle was close to being paper thin. Similar to my raspberry tea, the ice cream and whipped cream overpowered the flavor of the little four crunchy slices of the red waffled batter. From the first bite, I knew that this sweet dessert wasn’t worth nine dollars. Although presented on a cute squared plate and served with clean silver wear, it was not enough to persuade me that it was a well spent nine dollars. It didn’t make me particularly upset since I knew it wasn’t the main focus of the cafe.

Despite the fact that Niles North is less than a 15-minute walk and a one minute drive from the cafe, the number of costumes inside the cafe was a total of one student working silently, earbuds in, right next to the window. Along with the one working behind the counter, the music playing from the Bluetooth speaker up on a shelf couldn’t push through the awkward silence between what was now the four of us.

Within the 45 minutes, I spent in the cafe chatting with my sister, only one other customer walked in. This also seemed to be a student. After ordering and picking up her drink shortly after, she sat down silently. Trying not to disturb the two at work, I stood up with the glass plate and silver wear to ask the man behind the counter where I should place the dirty dishes. Considering the cafe closed at 11 pm and it was just barely 6 pm, he told me with a genuine smile that I could just give them to him.

Although my waffle rating wouldn’t be any higher than a five out of ten, my cold raspberry tea would be a 6/10. Since the tiny cafe is located much closer to Niles North than it is to us, I wouldn’t recommend driving there when we have, in my opinion, closer bubble tea spots with better-tasting things to offer. The service at TeaRex was outstanding, but not enough to fully win me over.