The longan honey milk tea is not so great. Will try other drinks and update the
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 4
Service: 5
Lucas Tuppeny
Accidentally broke my drink, staff was very understanding.
Nathan Riedel
Strawberry smoothie w boba was very MEH. Need more flavor maybe do a strawberry cream.
Laura B.
In person, the service is good. Online ordering had some hiccups before. Hopefully, that's been resolved. The tea is pretty good, but not great- too diluted. Tastes more like a milk drink with a hint of tea. The boba are not terrible, but a little on the over cooked side. I do like the non-dairy options and the location is great! They are also pretty fast. Last thing, the cups are ridiculously thin and have burst on me just shaking up the boba in smoothie.
J H.
Stumbled upon here while at the Sunday Ballard Farmers Market. Initially was looking for a place to use the restroom but didn't want to come in and not order anything. They have poke and boba in one location. Poke bowls are good portions and the spam mush I was yummy. Ended up getting the brown sugar milk tea and it was near perfection.
Peter Nguyen
Please listen to the review, 4.1. I did not and regret it big time. I ordered 4 different flavors and all of it was bland, that’s with no adjustments.
Albert T.
If you're in Ballard and you want boba, DIY is pretty much the only place to get it. That's actually the reason why we stopped by here on a Saturday afternoon. We got one drink:Classic Ruby Black Milk Tea, 50% Sugar, Less Ice w/ Boba ($6.25) - Interesting preparation here - the milk tea is presweetened, prebrewed, premixed with non-dairy creamer, and placed in the tea dispensers (I wonder how often the dispensers get cleaned). For the black tea, they have one dispenser with 100% sweet and one with no sweet. If you change the sweetness level, like I did, they mix the two together appropriately to get your desired sweetness level. In terms of the drink itself, the tea taste isn't particularly fragrant, but has a good black tea taste. Not the best tea, but good for a shop that doesn't brew tea to order. 50% sweet is not too sweet in this drink (probably around 25-30% sweet vs other places), and it allows the tea taste to come through. The boba is only very slightly harder than I prefer so it has a pretty good chew.DIY Tea Lab shares the same storefront with a poke place and the employees work on both sides. The store wasn't staffed that well when we visited - only two people combined for both the poke and the boba. The boba half actually wasn't staffed at all when we came in - we had to order at the self serve kiosk, and then someone walked over from the other side to make the drink. It wasn't a problem since we visited in a less busy time, but if they don't have more people at peak hours, I could see things taking much longer.I would definitely stop by again if in the area. This location is good enough for me to want to go to their other branches around Seattle.
Laura Lindzey
Stopped by at 7:52 pm, door was already locked, although sign said open until 8. So, don’t believe the posted opening times.
Grier Kubota
They have a lot of options for teas and milk drinks but none of them are particularly impressive. The staff are usually talking to each other and not behind the poke bar which always makes me think it's closed.
Seamus Curfman
I LOVE THIS PLACE. Its the closest Boba place to me and it has not only milk tea but other things that you can add Boba too like smoothies. Highly recommend.
Ordered a grapefruit green tea and it turned out looking like some radioactive neon orange water with no grapefruit. Menu picture at least had some real fruit. Waste of
Food: 1
Service: 1
Daniel Pepka
Delicious lychee tea. I got it 3/4th sweet but would probably do full next time, was very refreshing. We also got the multi layer peach at half sweet and it was really good but next time we would probably go 1/4 sweet, as it was still really sugary. Overall it was 9/10 would go back again and try more.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Meagan S.
I'm rating it low because a bit of crushed ice is not a smoothie/blended drink. It was a joke of one. The rest was milk/taro which tasted good but when you're expecting the consistency of a smoothie it's a bit disappointing to have basically paid for a regular taro tea with less ice.
j d
Yay a bubble tea place in Ballard. My side kick had a strawberry something that was great. I had a Thai tea, 25% sweet. I need to ask for a bit more. Excited to try other
Atmosphere: 4
Service: 5
Natin Rany
This place takes 5-15 minutes to put syrups and pre made tea in a cup AND NOT EVEN MIX IT! I would rather drive to the u-w or I.d. to get good bubble tea.
The longan honey milk tea is not so great. Will try other drinks and update the
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 4
Service: 5
Accidentally broke my drink, staff was very understanding.
Strawberry smoothie w boba was very MEH. Need more flavor maybe do a strawberry cream.
In person, the service is good. Online ordering had some hiccups before. Hopefully, that's been resolved. The tea is pretty good, but not great- too diluted. Tastes more like a milk drink with a hint of tea. The boba are not terrible, but a little on the over cooked side. I do like the non-dairy options and the location is great! They are also pretty fast. Last thing, the cups are ridiculously thin and have burst on me just shaking up the boba in smoothie.
Stumbled upon here while at the Sunday Ballard Farmers Market. Initially was looking for a place to use the restroom but didn't want to come in and not order anything. They have poke and boba in one location. Poke bowls are good portions and the spam mush I was yummy. Ended up getting the brown sugar milk tea and it was near perfection.
Please listen to the review, 4.1. I did not and regret it big time. I ordered 4 different flavors and all of it was bland, that’s with no adjustments.
If you're in Ballard and you want boba, DIY is pretty much the only place to get it. That's actually the reason why we stopped by here on a Saturday afternoon. We got one drink:Classic Ruby Black Milk Tea, 50% Sugar, Less Ice w/ Boba ($6.25) - Interesting preparation here - the milk tea is presweetened, prebrewed, premixed with non-dairy creamer, and placed in the tea dispensers (I wonder how often the dispensers get cleaned). For the black tea, they have one dispenser with 100% sweet and one with no sweet. If you change the sweetness level, like I did, they mix the two together appropriately to get your desired sweetness level. In terms of the drink itself, the tea taste isn't particularly fragrant, but has a good black tea taste. Not the best tea, but good for a shop that doesn't brew tea to order. 50% sweet is not too sweet in this drink (probably around 25-30% sweet vs other places), and it allows the tea taste to come through. The boba is only very slightly harder than I prefer so it has a pretty good chew.DIY Tea Lab shares the same storefront with a poke place and the employees work on both sides. The store wasn't staffed that well when we visited - only two people combined for both the poke and the boba. The boba half actually wasn't staffed at all when we came in - we had to order at the self serve kiosk, and then someone walked over from the other side to make the drink. It wasn't a problem since we visited in a less busy time, but if they don't have more people at peak hours, I could see things taking much longer.I would definitely stop by again if in the area. This location is good enough for me to want to go to their other branches around Seattle.
Stopped by at 7:52 pm, door was already locked, although sign said open until 8. So, don’t believe the posted opening times.
They have a lot of options for teas and milk drinks but none of them are particularly impressive. The staff are usually talking to each other and not behind the poke bar which always makes me think it's closed.
I LOVE THIS PLACE. Its the closest Boba place to me and it has not only milk tea but other things that you can add Boba too like smoothies. Highly recommend.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Strawberry Me
Restaurantji Recommends
Ordered a grapefruit green tea and it turned out looking like some radioactive neon orange water with no grapefruit. Menu picture at least had some real fruit. Waste of
Food: 1
Service: 1
Delicious lychee tea. I got it 3/4th sweet but would probably do full next time, was very refreshing. We also got the multi layer peach at half sweet and it was really good but next time we would probably go 1/4 sweet, as it was still really sugary. Overall it was 9/10 would go back again and try more.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
I'm rating it low because a bit of crushed ice is not a smoothie/blended drink. It was a joke of one. The rest was milk/taro which tasted good but when you're expecting the consistency of a smoothie it's a bit disappointing to have basically paid for a regular taro tea with less ice.
Yay a bubble tea place in Ballard. My side kick had a strawberry something that was great. I had a Thai tea, 25% sweet. I need to ask for a bit more. Excited to try other
Atmosphere: 4
Service: 5
This place takes 5-15 minutes to put syrups and pre made tea in a cup AND NOT EVEN MIX IT! I would rather drive to the u-w or I.d. to get good bubble tea.
Atmosphere: 1
Food: 1
Service: 2