Green Grotto Tea Room located at 3623 Hwy 7 in Markham

Did you know that there’s a Green Grotto Tea Room located at Highway 7 & Warden?  It’s in the plaza where Paintlounge used to be and where that sushi restaurant, Gal’s Sushi, still is.  During the break at one of our seminars last month, we visited this Green Grotto briefly for a snack and drink.  Green Grotto started off their first location at Warden & Steeles and now has this location plus one at Midland & McNicoll.

I tried one of their most popular items, the Hokkaido milk tea with grass jelly (I’ve been loving grass jelly in my drinks lately — it’s SO good and refreshing!) and loved the grass jelly and milk tea.  It wasn’t sweet at all even though I didn’t request it to be non-sweet.  The others also agreed that the drinks tended to be less sweet than usual despite no little-sugar request.

Bubble tea with small and medium-sized tapioca!

The place was packed on a Saturday and even though we ordered our drinks and food to go, it didn’t take too long for us to get our drinks.  It was nice in there! 🙂

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October 15, 2017:  I returned to this location after that first visit three years ago.  Ken and I came here after the Yelp shisha event for a late-night snack/dinner.  The restaurant was occupied with a few people here and there.

Ken ordered the Lavender Floral Tea and Sausage & Minced Pork on Rice with Egg while I got the Hot Formosa Bowl (Hot Gelatin Grass Jelly, QQ Ball, Sweet Potato, Sweet Taro, and Tapioca).

The glasses that they use have their logo of a little plant which I found so adorable!

That little guy is so cute!

The Floral Tea in a Pot (Lavender) ($6.99) wasn’t aesthetically pleasing as I thought it would be — sorry, forgot to take a photo of it.  It was a plain teapot with the lavender tea leaves in the strainer but the lavender tea smelled amazing!  Lavender helps you to de-stress and relax and that’s what I felt like when I sniffed the aroma in.  The taste of the tea was full-bodied and good too.

The Minced Pork on Rice with Egg looked disgusting.  It’s only now when I’m blogging that I realized they forgot to give us an egg!  What the heck.  The bowl wasn’t tasty at all; everything was quite mushy and didn’t taste fresh.  Ken said they probably microwaved the entire thing from the fridge.

Minced Pork on Rice with Egg. $7.99

Hot Formosa Bowl. $8.49
-Hot Gelatin Grass Jelly, QQ Ball, Sweet Potato, Sweet Taro, Tapioca

I also thought that my Hot Formosa Bowl looked really bad.  I only hoped it tasted good even if its appearance was lacking.  At first, I compared it to regular grass jelly but hot gelatin grass jelly apparently is a mucky mess.  I wish they didn’t put in syrup in it because I would have liked a more natural taste.  The sweet potato and sweet taro were indeed too sweet for my taste.  The QQ balls and tapioca were meh.  After having an amazing similar bowl at a dessert shop in Hong Kong, this definitely doesn’t compare and I already knew it it wouldn’t be on par anyway.

We both thought that this location didn’t seem to be very good; the Warden and Steeles location seems better.  They also don’t serve any popcorn at this location!

Highway 7 location interior