Chi Cha San Chen — dong ding oolong + honey ($4.50)!
Chi Cha San Chen (吃茶三千) iced dong ding oolong tea with honey: a roasted Taiwanese high-mountain oolong sweetened with honey, served in the signature twine-tied cup. $4.50.
Hot-day quencher: Chi Cha San Chen dong ding oolong + honey, $4.50. 😋
What was in hand:
- Iced dong ding oolong tea with honey: the amber tea in the clear cup, hung from its signature twine-tied carrier with the 吃茶三千 (Chi Cha San Chen) kraft sleeve
Chi Cha San Chen (吃茶三千) is the Taiwanese tea house that treats tea the way specialty coffee treats beans: single-origin Taiwanese leaves, an in-house brewing programme, and a machine that pressure-extracts each cup to order rather than holding vats of brewed tea. Where most bubble tea chains use generic tea dust and let the milk and sugar do the talking, Chi Cha lets the leaf lead.
Dong ding oolong (冻顶乌龙) is the flex here: a classic Taiwanese high-mountain-style oolong from the Dong Ding region of Lugu, Nantou, medium-roasted so it carries a buttery, floral-honey body with a smooth, roasty finish. It is a serious tea, the kind you would normally drink hot and unsweetened, served iced.
The honey pairing is the right call: rather than the usual sugar syrup, honey is the sweetener, and its floral sweetness echoes the oolong’s own honey notes rather than burying them. Honey-and-oolong is a natural match, the two sweetnesses reinforcing each other, and it keeps the drink tasting of tea rather than sugar.
At $4.50 for a single-origin dong ding oolong with honey at Chi Cha, this sits at the premium end of the tea-drink market, fair for the quality of the leaf.
Overall: 4.5 / 5. 😋👍🏼 The roasty floral-honey dong ding sweetened with real honey was the standout. Best afternoon refresher, would re-order.
