Koreatown’s latest addition, TuCha, brings even more variety to a neighborhood already packed with eateries where you can grab a quick bite and your afternoon caffeine jolt, or linger over coffee or bubble tea in a cozy environment worthy of the Lo-Fi Girl on YouTube. There are options for every taste and budget range, but if you’re seeking fancier fare than a croissant to go with your mitsugaru latte, you can rejoice with TuCha’s opening on 7th Street and Wilshire Place.
Conveniently located one block south of Southwestern Law School and the Wilshire-Vermont transit hub, you can enjoy a variety of tea master-blend brews and artisanal desserts in the slick interior, or take them with you to soak up that California sun in the waterfall alcoves along Westmoreland Avenue.
Ktown is a veritable sea of bubble tea and tall hand-crafted cold drinks, with tea leaves and tapioca pearls as plentiful as the neighborhood’s dense mixed-use developments. What makes TuCha stand out from nearby bubble tea bastions like Boba Time and Boba Grande is the smaller menu focusing on premium-quality ingredients, and their partnership with veteran dessert chef Catherine Zhang.
TuCha was founded by Hong Kong natives who bring, as their website states, “a shared passion for honoring our heritage while embracing innovation”. You’ll see classic refreshments like brown sugar boba, but you’ll also find exciting new creations like yuzu tonic and orange Americano iced coffee. The show-stopping desserts are small works of confectionary art, designed to look like real lemons and mangoes or going straight for surrealism and literal cubism with chocolate and berry cubes. It’s easy to see why Catherine Zhang won Season 2 of Zumbo’s Just Desserts on Netflix!
TuCha is located on 2968 West 7th Street in Koreatown and night owls will be thrilled to know that they are open from 12PM to 9PM Sunday through Thursday, 10PM on Fridays and Saturdays, when we need coffee and a fancy dessert well past dinnertime.
