Ten Ren's Tea Time (111 Times Ave & Hwy 7 location ONLY) was one of my favourite tea houses in Toronto/GTA. The atmosphere and decor is quite elegant and it was a great place to have a drink, snacks and chat for hours with friends. The tea drinks were also better, most of their fruit + tea drinks were made with real fruit or juices and not just powder. You can also taste the tea flavour, drinks were well balanced. My favourites were the apple high mountain slush tea and the pineapple dragonwell slush tea. The meals were also presented really nicely, combos were offered, and their Taiwanese salted crispy chicken (鹽酥雞 yan su ji) was the best in the city in my opinion. But, all this does come at a price though, prices for drinks or food were always higher than other places. The price of a tea is at least $1-2 more expensive (i.e. 25% higher) than other locations, as are the food. You had to find it was worth the price to go regularly and several years ago I did.
But in the last couple of years I stopped going; there were several personal reasons that prevented me from going, much more other places to go to now, and it started to get more expensive. This past Civic holiday we decided to go for lunch as I was craving a shaved ice dessert and thought it would be good to revisit. Unfortunately, the meal was just so-so.
I ordered the pu'erh beef noodle soup (with green tea noodles). The beef was still tender as before but the portion size has gotten smaller, less beef and less noodles. The soup also was lacking in flavour; maybe they were trying to be healthier with less fat and salt but this made for some bland soup. The noodles were always soft, not chewy, so that was the same. The price is also higher and you can understand with inflation that prices do rise, but when prices rice and portions drop, you have to think, is it worth it?!
I didn't order a drink as I was having crushed/shaved ice (my main purpose for going). Their special pineapple and red bean crushed ice was not available, they were out of the pineapple which was disappointing...so I got the green tea ice cream and red bean snow ice dessert. This was okay, a large portion but reflective in the price ($8.99). The green tea ice cream was strong in green tea flavour so enthusiasts would be happy. They use the green tea powder they sell to make the ice cream which was fine tasting, but I think I prefer the taste of matcha green tea slightly more. I only wish there was a single serving size as I was the only one eating the crushed ice dessert (these desserts are huge!).
My partner had a classic milk tea, still decent, just on the sweet side, we're used to ordering our drinks with half the sugar but forgot this time.
Service in the past was always great, you didn't have to wait long but the last few times have been slow. Servers are polite but not the same, there used to be more care to the service offered. Maybe it was just lunch and a holiday, whatever it is, it just didn't leave a great impression.
On a positive note, for families looking for a baby friendly place, they do have high chairs and the restrooms are equipped with baby changing stations. So this was a plus. I did notice that there were a lot of little kids at this location. Maybe it's summer, the time of day, or maybe there's a change in clientèle...maybe this Ten Ren's is drawing a different demographic of people than other locations; families and more affluent adults? Whatever the case, I think I'll be back another time to revisit their tea drinks and crispy chicken which I hope has not gone downhill! But, it'll be a while and hopefully I don't have to say farewell.
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