Amanda L.
Yelp
Presotea is probably the closest boba shop to me, which I love, and it's located in the same plaza as one of my favorite restaurants, Oakland Tea House, which I often get carryout from, so in general it's in a great location for me, personally! It's also located kiddy corner to Oakland University, so it's truly a great location for everyone!
I tried Presotea for the first time a couple months back and the drink I got really wasn't good. I had ordered a wintermelon tea drink and I was a bit discouraged at how much I didn't like it because I always thought it was one of those things you couldn't mess up.
Fast forward a few months and I randomly met the owner of this Presotea at an event and even he said that he doesn't recommend the winter melon drinks to customers. I asked him why he even had it on his menu then and he said because people expected winter melon from a boba shop and I was like yeah, but they expect a certain type of winter melon drink! LOL certainly NOT what you have. The Presotea winter melon drink has actual *chunks* of winter melon in it and is significantly less sweet. The thing we all need to realize is that yes, winter melon is an actual vegetable, but winter melon in boba shops is literally just the *taste* of winter melon loaded up with hella sugar to make it palatable haha. I wouldn't say it's *artificial*, but compared to the actual vegetable taste, it's like night and day, but that's what people expect from a winter melon DRINK. Meanwhile, Presotea clearly loves focusing on making things more natural and authentic, which I completely respect, so their winter melon drink is a lot more "natural" and closer to the actual vegetable than I, or really anyone, would expect, which truly caught me by surprise. Now that I know, I will never order winter melon from Presotea again, BUT literally everything else on their menu is delicious!
Most recently, I went back for a Mango Cloud drink, which was mango and cheese foam and jelly boba. It was so fruity and delicious and was the perfect pairing to my Oakland Tea House food. I was also delighted to find that Presotea is serving banh mi's as well. I didn't get one this time, but they all looked really delicious and I am definitely very interested in trying them out SOON! Also BONUS: Come to Presotea on a weekday around lunchtime/early afternoon and you'll find that they have "happy hour," which gives you an additional discount on your order!
In addition to their drinks and food, I am really impressed by the Presotea space. The space is really big and bright and gorgeously set up. The chairs are INSANELY comfortable and contrary to your run-of-the-mill coffee shop, I could actually picture myself sitting here all day studying or just reading for pleasure and fully plan on doing just that in the near future!