Comebuy

Save yourself the trip. A big disappointment. I specifically came here seeking Macha bubble tea with bobas. The tea was supposedly green tea. It was light brown in color & tasted more like coffeemate. The bobas were hard in the center. Will definitely not return.

BEST BUBBLE TEA
Who you sleepin’ on go put that shit in your mouth boo.

I tried the caramel bubble tea, honestly not expecting much because the place was extremely empty despite its good location, but actually found it to be pretty good! The bubbles were a good texture and cooked just perfectly, though the size is a little big. The tea itself was also very pleasant– definitely would recommend trying at least once.

What a creepy place for a friday evening
I took my taro bubble tea and literally ran away from this place
The drink was good though but the bubble were not «fresh» and chewy enough.

I love Bubble tea and tried Comebuy for the first time yesterday. Very satisfied with my milk tea. Not too sweat and I felt refreshed after; Exactly how a good drink should leave you feeling. Gonna be in the area today and might just stop by for another.

It’s not the cleanest place anymore (it was when they first opened) and they’ve done some renovations to it… a cheap looking chinese buffet thing and a sushi bar. It bums me out, because the eastern burger food is WAY better and more authentic than the Americanized stuff. HOWEVER, I do understand that people need to make money in this town.
So let’s talk food at Eastern Burger/​ComeBuy. Get the pork (#1) burger. It’s the closest you’ll get to what we get in Taiwan. Also, get the beef noodle soup. You will NOT regret it! Whenever I get a hankering for a nostalgic meal, I come here.
The bubble tea is still top notch! One of my favorite places to get bubble tea at (4 out of 5 based on the list below).
So for those who don’t know, here are the requirements for excellent bubble tea:
1. Giant tapioca pearls
2. Pearls should be cooked thoroughly and soaked in honey water.
3. The texture should be soft and chewy. If you find the center to be hard in anyway, it is UNDERCOOKED! And there’s nothing you can do about it but suck it up because that means the entire batch is like that.
4. The standard is the black tea with milk and sugar.
5. There should be a foamy froth at the top… so far, there is no place in the US that does this.

Not many bubble tea places do the flavored teas well — they’re either too sweet or too artificial-​tasting. While I prefer hot milk teas, at ComeBuy your best bet is to get a flavored one. The milk teas taste powdery, but the fruit teas are nice and refreshing.
Passionfruit and Taro are favorites. If you want it less sweet and more flavorful, get it with half-​sugar and half-​ice. Another plus for this place — they’re generous with the boba bubbles. Enjoy!

This boba place is definitely more pricey than Vivo and other boba places. Selections:
1. Taro milk tea — $ 3.50 without tapioca — about average, but a bit pricey considering that it doesn’t come with bubbles
2. Passion Blast (passionfruit, coconut jelly, boba) — super flavorful and refreshing! and the employee let me sub lychee for coconut jelly which was great.
Major Pro-​U can specify ice and sugar levels in your drink here!
Overall the juices were good but the tea wasnt anything special.

Comebuy is a Taiwanese franchise offering bubble teas and a variety of other drinks. If you are an avid bubble tea drinker, you know the Taiwanese do it best. I’ve been to the Comebuy Flatiron location and I definitely prefer this particular location. The service is fast (in the afternoon) here and they share a space with C Bao, so you can grab some food as well.
You can request the level of sweetness and iciness which should be a standard across all bubble tea shops. I usually order 50% sweet and 50% ice. In addition to bubble teas, they have flavored teas and juices, smoothies, and coffee. They also offer unique toppings like vermicelli, basil seeds, and jellies. However, they do not offer my favorite ingredient, red bean. Oh well.
On to the drinks, in order of preference:
— Passion blast — such a refreshing, thirst quenching drink. I ordered 50% sweet and it was still a bit sweet but not overbearing. It’s passionfruit juice with bubbles and coconut jellies. The bubbles and jellies had the perfect consistency.
— Taro milk tea — solid taro flavor
— Lychee juice –comes with lychee jelly. At 50% sweet, it’s too sweet but still tasty. I don’t think it’s possible to have a semi sweet juice unless it is watered down.
— The QQ Milk tea is their most popular drink according to their Top 10 list. It’s their classic milk tea with vermicelli noodles and bubbles. The tea is good at 50% sweet but the vermicelli was a bit odd for me. It was fun to eat at first but the novelty wore off. Next time I would order the classic bubble milk tea.
Too bad they don’t offer a frequent buyer card. At $ 3.00-$ 3.75 for a medium, it’s a good deal for a shop in the West Village. I’ll be back for sure.

Authentic Taiwanese milk tea! Comebuy has so many flavor options, but you can’t go wrong with the basic milk tea and their grapefruit green tea. I really like how you can adjust the sweetness and the ice levels!
It’s also conveniently located in the same space as a Chinese place that serves dumplings and noodle soup.
Bring your Belly card if you have one! That’s what they use for their rewards program.

They don’t have many flavors, the wait is long, it’s really warm in here. BUT! When I finally got my bubble tea, it was delicious and I would say worth waiting for. If I don’t feel like traveling further for BoBA I’ll probably stop by here again. I loved how they could make it low sugar, which a lot of places seem to not be able to do which is problematic to me since I can’t have a lot of sugar. They were also very apologetic about the wait time.
Didn’t try the food and I probably wouldn’t, personally.

Delicious bubble tea spot! It has so much variety, and you can pretty much try any bubble tea filler that you want :) I always try to stop here when I’m in the area!

The lychee boba was really good– (light, lychee juice that doesn’t taste syrupy) and nice fat pearls. It was so good, that although I came in here for the WIFI (and was unable to get one, wasting about 30 mins trying the password and having the servers help me), I stayed for an hour. Unfortunately, as I mentioned above, I was unable to get on their WIFI and their bathroom was out of service and they asked me to go next door. A for effort, but D for inconvenient.
But I would definitely come back for more bubble tea.

that moment when you’re happily sucking down boba with a mouthful of milk tea but all of a sudden there is no tea and all boba… is there anything more devastating?
is there such thing as TOO much boba?
the verdict is out but i do think it’s possible that this place needs to work on their tea vs boba ratio. maybe it’s my fault for ordering a medium but it looked like there was half boba, half tea before i even started drinking and a few sips later it was tapioca city.
despite this, comebuy has very delicious and inexpensive bubble tea and a huge variety. next time I’ll go for the large.

I would absolutely stay clear of this place!
Only if you want boba tea I would give it a go. But the food there is over priced and not worth a penny. I wanted to grab a quick bite and just happened to pass by.
I ordered the crispy chicken bao and sweet potato fries. The lady who took my order could barely understand me and barely spoke English but I still gave them the benefit of the doubt and waited for my food.
The sweet potato fries were soggy and mushed together. I couldn’t grab a fry because it was just all mushed together. The chicken Sandwhich was just as awful. It was tasteless and super greasy. I wanted to complain and get my money back but it wasn’t even worth it since the staff could barely communicate. I left disappointed and didn’t finish my meal. Wasted $ 10 bucks and never going back again!

Summary: Despite the odd but catchy name, Comebuy is a solid Taiwanese bubble tea experience with a casual dining environment. (It’s co-​located in a shop with C Bao, another Taiwanese establishment that happens to sell… Baos… dumplings, noodles, and well, comfort food)
Perspective: Comebuy has two other locations, Flatiron and Flushing and can be found at Passport to Taiwan in Union Square (annually). To give you some perspective though, like Coco Fresh Tea and Juice, Comebuy has hundreds of stores in Asia and Europe. The main selling point being the custom-​built $ 4 000 «tea espresso» machines that extract maximum flavor from passionfruit, Darjeeling, and grapefruit.
Environment: I stopped in on my way to an UYE (unofficial Unilocal event) in the hopes of cooling down in the unrelenting heat after walking over from Union Square. A big standout feature which is a departure from it’s competitors is the vast dining area… it’s spacious with little nooks to squeeze into to people-​watch from the comfort of counters and stools alongside the glass window; iced tea in-​hand, or order from C Bao and have a meal whilst eating at the tables. Totally your call.
Specifics: I had ordered a large Apple fizzy with coconut jelly and bubbles. As the name implies, it is lightly carbonated with Apple syrup. Exactly what I needed to avert heat stroke… or not. A tad expensive mind you, but I’m citing the 14^th st. proximity as the reason for this slight. After reading some of the previous reviews, in retrospect, I should have ordered the Triple Q Passionfruit (Next time!)… i do love me some passionfruit.
Misc: I did notice they sell snacks too. Macarons from Macaron Café anyone? They deploy the loyalty/​reward system Belly for checking in here, in case you’re into that. (I have it, but have yet to utilize any of the benefits. Don’t you have enough things to check into already???)
Conclusion: In the end, I’d rank Comebuy alongside the likes of major chains Ten Ren, Coco, Quickly, and Kung-​Fu Tea. (Comebuy comes in between Quickly’s and KFT). Anything else not on this list just doesn’t make the cut. (I don’t officially count independent tea shops, but St. Alps deserves my love and honorable mention) Sorry-​not-​sorry but yes, I’m a bubble tea snob.

Oh yes this place was good. I don’t care thats it not «local» or whatever. All I care about is great quality tea and some soft fresh bobas and I’m a happy camper. Comebuy delivered all that on top of prompt friendly service.

I love this place. They allow you to choose three levels of sugar for your bubble milk tea (I normally choose the lowest amount), which makes this place unique among all other milk tea spots. The space is large, and great for larger groups.
However there are quite a few cons which has made me want to avoid this place at times. The music is too loud and too annoying. They play hip hop ²⁴⁄₇!!! They play the RADIO so you listen to commercials whenever it’s on. It is soooo annoying! They also play it loud enough for you to have to speak somewhat loud to allow your friends to hear.
Also, the baristas are not consistent and never have a smile on their faces– especially the Asian dudes (the black girls that work there are fantastically friendly). For example, some of the baristas will ask you for your preferred sugar level, others will not! The only reason why this place has the BEST bubble milk tea is because of the quality boba, and because you can control the sugar level. Without all the components needed to create a great boba, the drink will taste as generic as any other boba place in Chinatown.
In addition, some of the baristas make your milk tea so sloppily they hand it to you dripping. They sacrifice quality for speed … sad.
One more con, they are also ghetto cheap with their napkins :/​/​They place tiny amounts at the register and never hand you enough. Their napkins are very thin and cheap.
Although I’ve listed many cons, I still believe in Come Buy. Once I found out about this place, it has been my come-​to place for boba. It replaced Tous Les Jours in ktown. However the quality deteriorated since its opening … sad. Tous Les Jours may return to my list of regulars if changes don’t happen soon.

Get to the Chase:
Pros:
1) Know their stuff and execute well
2) TONS of choices
3) Different levels of sweetness (go with 50% and less… otherwise waaay too sweet)
4) Great staff (they smile, and are polite. don’t try to rush you out the door)
5) Also have some macarons
6) Some seating
7) Generous portions
Cons:
1) Can get heavy and too rich (especially the syrupy drinks)
2) No longer have the stamps loyalty card
3) Some tables were sticky :(no clean up

NEW comebuy location that share’s a dining space w/​a chinese joint that serves baos and such
no dough doughnuts at this location but i saw macarons
–grass jelly milk tea: WAY too much grass jelly in ratio with their delicious milk tea
–comebuy caffe iced: I am a fan of Asian café coffees since they are sweetened and have creamer! This will give you a caffeine rush!
–triple q passion fruit: mmm!
NOTE: they are no longer giving out stampcards but are using belly. but they are letting me finish off the stampcard i already have! WOOT
NOTE: minimum credit charge of $ 5