Chatime’s new cilantro-based boba and flight series battle barriers in Overland Park

Chatime’s Signature Flight, with brown sugar milk tea, peach green tea, and a mango refresher // Photo by Kylie Volavongsa

Among the Kansas City metro’s sea of strip malls, there’s an ever-present quandary for suburban business owners: How do I bring people to my portion of the parking lot? 

For Lauren Aust-Yuen and Sonny Yuen, Overland Park franchisees of the Taiwan-based chain Chatime, the approach is twofold: the divisive power of cilantro—until May 31 or supplies run out—and a new ongoing series of boba flights to win a Johnson County battle for hearts and minds. 

“There’s this barrier to entry,” Aust-Yuen says of every boba shop’s vast menu, “so the concept was born to help people know what they like and create an approachable and affordable entry point to explore.” 

The tea spots in Kansas City proper have advanced to the likes of Veil Cafe’s hojicha (roasted green tea) lattes and Tian Tea House’s use of dang shen (a root in traditional Chinese medicine). But for many Joco residents, boba tea is still a relatively new prospect for the majority-white suburb. Speaking from experience as a Joco teenager, I grew up getting my fix from Dragonfly Tea Zone (and the backs of menus at random Vietnamese restaurants that happened to serve slushy boba—and only that). It was when the national chain Kung Fu Tea opened its Overland Park location in 2018 that my family finally began to have some variety within easy driving distance. 

For the average Johnson County-an, though, boba shop menus are rife with concepts that generally aren’t found in the American palate—like winter melon, grass jelly, and even the slushy avocado bobas from an era of back-of-the-menu-at-an-Asian-restaurant exclusivity. They’re an intimidating thing for those without any sort of primer, especially when they’re not already a household flavor.

The cilantro moment

Chatime OP owners Lauren Aust-Yuen and Sonny Yuen // Photo by Kylie Volavongsa

Chatime offers a lemon tea and milk tea that are the vibrant green of their keystone herb. Why cilantro? It’s become a meme flavor in China and Taiwan, which made its way to overseas franchises in the form of Pizza Hut pies and McDonald’s sundaes. Plus, it’s a trend you can join at an American Gen-Z moment of being at “a very Chinese time in our lives” (for the better-or-worse implications of this online phenomenon). 

I will say that the drinks have my stamp of approval. The cilantro isn’t too strong in both the lemon and milk tea iterations (though I prefer the plain lemon tea version). They hit the palate refreshingly sweet, with that cilantro note as a more of a fragrant afterthought, one less sharp than you’d expect it to be. In premise, too, these drinks are a dare you can brag about like Mean Mule’s mustardy, Malort-based “Strange Paradise” cocktail.  

Boba takes flight

The real mainstay is Chatime OP’s new series of boba flights. 

You can choose from four different $10 flights. Each comes with three 8.5 oz. drinks that include toppings, with a milk tea series, fruit tea series, signature series, or a caffeine-free refresher series. If you like one of the samples that much, the flights also come with a 20% discount for another full-sized drink. 

I tried the Signature Flight, with brown sugar milk tea boba, peach green tea with popping boba, and a mango refresher with boba and lychee jelly. As an Asian American woman, I’ll say it was fine, standard, and dairy-free stuff—the kind you can safely introduce to a friend who’s never entered the warm ball world of boba before. 

For the culture

Yuen and Aust-Yuen submitted a proposal of the concept to Chatime’s broader management, making the flights unique to their location in the area. It was a way to disrupt what they observed as a need for a slower culture and a sense of transactionality at what they would like to become a local third space. 

“We as a society are in this constant state of ‘go, go, go.’ And when I’m in the shop, people are looking down on their phones, grab their drink, then ‘thanks. bye.’ There’s something to be said for slowing down, breaking your routine, and trying something new,” Aust-Yuen explains. 

Photo by Kylie Volavongsa

Resisting transactionality, though, is a conflicting idea for a store in the ranks of an over 1,300-location enterprise. Especially when trying to create a more locally personalized environment. 

To this, Aust-Yuen replies: “We have the space to act independently, and there’s also the convenience of everything from a sourcing standpoint. When you know the product is premium, I can act on autopilot so I can tailor everything else to my customers and the KC market.” 

Chatime OP’s flight experiment starts April 20 and is here to stay. 

Chatime Overland Park is located at 10150-A, Overland Park, KS 66213.