When it first opened, people were excited. When they actually tried it, they were horribly disappointed.

       Bad choice or not, I decided the Cupertino Tea Zone deserved a physical evaluation before making any judgement.

       I was wrong.

       Upon first entrance, the store was awkwardly empty – sort of like a Donald Trump convention in Silicon Valley. Not considering anything else, the atmosphere seemed pretty nice. There were cards and games laid out for people to use, but there wasn’t anyone there to make use of them save for the few customers that occasionally wandered into the store. The employees were nice though! Maybe due to the lack of human interaction they received while working there.

       Upon the cashier’s recommendation I decided to order a Secret Garden and Mango Tango and I came to realize that they offered a drink named “PMS.” I avoided it. They both came with mangoes but that’s a topic I’ll get to soon; I decided to get one with boba and one without. On a generous day, PMS free, I’d rate their boba a 2.7/10.

       All alone, I sat myself down, with the notes application on my phone open, ready to record my first impressions of the drinks. As I took my first sip, I was pleasantly surprised; unfortunately, my satisfaction was short lived. As I cruelly met the bitter aftertaste of my drink, I cringed, as my hopes and aspirations were lost. I took a few extra sips to confirm my impressions, and I was met with more of the aftertaste. I thought about it more, and I pondered the source of the weird aftertaste – was it from the tea? Or was it from the mango?

       I regretfully continued to drink, and with each sip, a bit of my soul died. As I ate my first bit of mango, I was repulsed. As an avid mango lover, this was blasphemy. The piece of mango tasted like the gross green part of actual mangoes that nobody eats. It also had a strange carrot-like texture, which led me to doubt the “fresh” aspect of the fruit.

       I made my way back to school, and while walking, I saw two freshmen drinking Tpumps. I, drinking Tea Zone, was extremely jealous and attempted to hide my drinks in shame. Student Roei Cohen, upon seeing the drink, asked, “Is that corn?!?” I had to explain to him that it wasn’t.

       To summarize, my 15 minutes of trials and tribulations were unpleasant to say the least. At first, as a thrifty individual, I was enticed by their “buy one get the second half off” deal, but I came to regret my frugality. In the end, my stomach was dying and I just wanted to go home.