GTA Eats: Ten Ren’s Tea in Thornhill

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Ten Ren’s Tea is a Taiwanese tea and ginseng company  that has several stores and restaurants in the GTA. Ryan, Tomiko, Karlos, and I ate lunch at the branch in Thornhill after visiting nearby King Cole Ducks for all of our ducky needs. My siblings and I rarely find ourselves exploring the GTA areas outside of Toronto, but Ryan had taken me to Taiwanese tea shops in Markham and I was intrigued by the casual eateries. We don’t have these in the downtown Toronto Chinatown yet, but I’ve seen some empty storefronts that look like they will soon house similar Taiwanese tea shops.

Ten Ren’s Tea makes really good bubble tea. Regular cheap bubble tea is just flavoured, powdered sugar that is mixed with water or crushed ice, and served with tapioca balls ‘bubbles.’ Ten Ren’s Tea adds their fresh flavours to a base of real green, black, or oolong tea, and we can really taste the difference. Ryan and I shared a small pot of hot black taro milk tea, and Tomiko and Karlos shared a cold ginseng green bubble tea.

Taro drinks are normally purple-coloured, but ours was more coffee-coloured because it was mixed with black tea. It was sweet and milky and comforting, perfect for a chilly fall day.

Bubble tea can be a bit of an acquired taste – most of our European friends and family members don’t like the sticky, chewy tapioca balls. It’s really quite funny to watch their faces as they eat their first tapioca bubble!

The Ten Ren’s Tea shops in the suburbs are rather large with a built-in shop where customers can buy tea and ginseng. The one location in downtown Toronto has the tea shop and bubble tea stand, but sadly, no food.

We ordered these fried Taiwanese pancakes stuffed with pork and vegetables. We’ve had similar ones at the T&T Night Market, and they’re becoming a real favourite!

Karlos ordered a bowl of Creamy Chicken Soup, which smelled and tasted amazing.

Fried noodles are my favourite, so we shared this Ginseng Chicken Fried Noodle dish. Ginseng is something we don’t drink or cook with, and yet the flavour and aroma are very familiar. We definitely need to stock up and start cooking!

The four of us also shared this basil pork dish, which was deliciously moreish, but rather slippery and difficult to eat!

Lastly, for dessert, we shared a condensed milk brick toast, which is a thick slab of white bread slathered with sweetened condensed milk and then grilled. It was sweet and soft and a bit weird but definitely tasty. We of course had to tell our parents about our outing, and we hope to visit next time we’re out in the suburbs of Toronto!