Daniel B.
Yelp
We enjoyed the food and drink we had at Tea Leaf and Creamery in North Decatur.
With a generic-sounding name, what differentiates Tea Leaf and Creamery from most other bubble tea shops in metro Atlanta are:
1. Location. Located near Emory University, there wasn't a Buford-Highway-quality bubble tea joint in this part of town until now. Tea Leaf set up shop in the old Jamba Juice space in the strip mall with the FedEx Office and Willy's at the highly-trafficked intersection of Clairmont and N Decatur Rds. They opened in May 2020.
2. Ice cream. At the time of our visit, the "creamery" part of this business offered a dozen flavors of ice cream, from Matcha Green Tea to Rocky Road, and over 20 toppings including Pocky sticks and Kit Kat bars.
3. Taiyaki and egg waffles. More and more bubble tea places in metro Atlanta are serving taiyaki and egg waffles. Tea Leaf and Creamery emphasizes their taiyaki. Their logo is taiyaki with a scoop of ice cream on top, which is exactly what you can get here.
We had Tea Leaf's Custard Taiyaki and they were outstanding. I highly recommend them. The textures and flavors were perfect. The breading was warm, crispy, and delicious. It wasn't too greasy. And the custard filling was rich and luscious. Just terrific. If you're not familiar with taiyaki, it's a Japanese pastry shaped like a fish that's fried and comes with fillings - typically red bean or custard - and toppings like scooped ice cream or soft serve.
Several bubble tea shops and Asian bakeries and cafes in metro Atlanta serve mini taiyaki that are "closed" with the filling inside. Tea Leaf is the first place I've encountered in the area that serves standard, hand-held-sized taiyaki with openings for fillings and toppings. In this sense, one taiyaki is much like an ice cream cone, except fresher and tastier.
Our Custard Taiyaki were made fresh in Tea Leaf's taiyaki machine. They have an open display kitchen so you can watch the staff make your taiyaki. The taiyaki starts at $2.50 apiece with most "Signature Taiyaki" $5.95 each. There were eight Signature Taiyaki options, each featuring a filled taiyaki base with ice cream and two toppings (preset combinations). Since we got our taiyaki to-go, we didn't opt for one of the Signature options nor ice cream because it would've been too messy to transport. The taiyaki are served in laminated paper sleeves (standard) so your fingers don't get oily.
Another food item we tried was Tea Leaf's Egg Waffle. They start at $3 each. We got ours with Nutella and I'm not sure if they charged us for it. Like the taiyaki, Tea Leaf's egg waffles are cooked fresh and you can watch the staff prepare the egg waffles at the counter. Our Nutella Egg Waffles were simple yet delicious. Again, like the taiyaki, the egg waffles had excellent taste and texture. Warm, crisp, and comforting. Each bite was addictive. Even plain, these things are yummy. They're kind of like doughnuts, but less sweet. If you've never had an egg waffle before, I suggest you try one.
We also got some drinks. I had a few. I had a Handcrafted Mango Coco (medium, $5.95), a Taro Marble Bubble (medium, $5.25), and a 60'Sec Sea Salt Cheese Foam Cherry Blossom Oolong Tea (medium, $4.75) with regular bubbles (+$0.60). All of the drinks were very good. I couldn't stop drinking each of them, so that should tell you how much I liked them. I had intended to save one of the drinks for later, but I ended up drinking everything the same night (poor self control on my part).
These particular drinks are available in medium size (500 mL or 16.9 oz) only. Large drinks are 700 mL or 23.7 oz.
The Handcrafted Mango Coco is one of Tea Leaf's fruit teas. It was a nice mix of both fruity and creamy and there were jellies inside too. Of the drinks I tried, this was my favorite. The Taro Marble Bubble drink was one of five Marble Bubble selections. I think these are the equivalent of what other bubble tea shops call their Brown Sugar Boba drinks, with the layers of boba, syrup, milk, and tea. The Taro Marble Bubble drink from Tea Leaf wasn't the best I've had of this type of drink, but it wasn't bad either. Still worth a shot, in my opinion.
The 60'Sec Sea Salt Cheese Foam Cherry Blossom Oolong Boba Tea (yep, the name is a mouthful) was good. In general, I'm a fan of the salty cheese foam drinks because I like to mix the foam into the tea to give the drink more flavor as well as a richer, frothier, and creamier texture that is unique to these drinks. My wife doesn't like it as much, so it's a personal preference. This drink had more oolong tea taste with subtle floral notes. I noticed the bubbles in this drink were golden bubbles. Both the bubbles in this drink and the Taro Marble Bubble drink were more firm than I prefer. The "60'Sec" in the name refers to the time that the tea bags are boiled in the water.
Tea Leaf uses real organic milk (with lactose). I counted 66 drink and 18 topping options on the menu.
Service was fine.