Class 302 Cafe

Alternately known as Class 302 Tea Cafe and Class 302 Cafe, this small chain of Taiwanese tea shops and snack items has been one of our low-key favorites locally for years, despite some notable ups and downs.

The biggest attraction at Class 302 is its selection of self-serve boba drinks, which are unparalleled in Orange County: At the Market Place location, you can choose from around two dozen different teas and slushies, then scoop boba, bursting boba, pudding, crumbled cookies, and/or jellies into your cup, and pay for your concoction at the counter as the cup is plastic sealed. (Post-pandemic, a person at the counter began handling the boba and jelly scoops – sometimes unpleasantly – a change that really should be reverted.)

Over countless visits, we’ve enjoyed frozen Thai tea and matcha drinks, honey milk tea, winter melon tea, mango green tea, and tons of other options. For both kids and adults, this is a perfect place to learn about and sample the wide variety of teas that are now available at so many places throughout Orange County (and the world), then create a fairly large cup with as little ice and as much boba as you want, without getting upcharged for either – you pay by the cup, not by the ingredients. (Yogurtland, which has lost the plot and countless customers serving DIY yogurt by the ounce, should really be taking notes from Class 302.)