Eightfold Tea Shoppe

There’s literally no tea shop we’ve visited with a social media disconnect like Eightfold Tea’s. For the first two years we considered visiting this Costa Mesa location of a small chain, cool photos on Instagram were offset by such frequently negative post-pandemic online reviews that we didn’t know if we wanted to risk the disappointment. Then we went in for ourselves and had the first of several very good experiences – with no bad ones in between. While it’s possible that Eightfold was being astroturfed by competitors or former employees, the other possibility is that we’ve just been lucky. In any case, we’ve continued to return and recommend it to others.

Each of the drinks we’ve ordered have been as beautiful and intensely flavored as one might expect from their Instagram images: On one visit, we ordered a Blueberry Lojito that arrived with fresh blueberries and mint, as well as a strawberry matcha milk tea with strawberry jelly, both so good that we were actively ready to return before we even finished the drinks. The next time, we enjoyed a Double Green (matcha, matcha pudding, honeydew and boba), Pina Colada, and Brown Sugar Milk with Boba. All hits, no misses.