Head to Tea Fusion Cafe in University City for shaved ice cream, bubble tea, mangonadas and more

It’s called a mangonada, a Mexican fruit drink I happen to love and absolutely had to have right that second. The place tagged in the photo was new to me so I did what any normal human would do and rerouted my entire Tuesday so I could go get one.

That led me to Tea Fusion Cafe up in University about a year behind the curve. Better late than never. (Thanks, Aaron!)

Tea Fusion Cafe serves a selection of teas, fruit slushies, specialty hot drinks, pastries and ice cream.

The globally inspired menu features Vietnamese iced coffee (cafe sua da), Taiwanese shaved ice cream, bubble tea and my beloved mangonada.

Co-owner Annie Luong told me she wanted to open an alternative to the predictable franchise coffee scene. “Sometimes it feels like all there is to do is go to Starbucks,” she said, “and some of my friends don’t even drink coffee.”

So she and her partner Jimmy Cao opened Tea Fusion Cafe about 10 months ago and have been met with rave reviews. In fact, their ratings are nearly perfect across all the major review sites — 4.9/5 stars on Facebook, 5/5 stars on Yelp and 4.9/5 stars on Google.

Pretty impressive.

The Mason Jar Tea Refreshers ($5.25) packed with diced fruit, jellies and chia seeds are a showstopper.

I went with passion fruit since it’s the most popular but they also have berry, mango, pineapple, apple, strawberry, orange and peach variations.

The drink is served in a 24-ounce mason jar with an elaborate fruit garnish.

If you’re a fan of bubble tea ($4.75), avocado is one of the most popular flavors.

It’s thick, creamy and sweet like a milkshake but we’ll call it a health food since it’s green.

And the shaved ice cream ($4.99) is a must.

This gorgeous pile of delicate shaved ribbons of ice cream is what summer dreams are made of.

Choose from taro (most popular), coconut, honeydew, green tea or strawberry and then top it with jellies, popping pearls, mochi, beans or taro chunks.

Of course, if you’re like me, you’re on the hunt for the mangonada.

As best I can tell, it’s an off-menu item and an extremely popular one at that, which means sometimes they run out of ingredients for it. Now that I know about it, they definitely will.

On the food front, Tea Fusion Cafe offers fried snack foods, including chicken, shrimp, calamari, oysters and tofu.

They’ve also got a 10-item banh mi menu with fillings like grilled pork, fried egg, sardines, lemongrass tofu, bulgogi and unagi.

I’m so glad I followed the Instagram trail to Tea Fusion Cafe. It’s a bright, clean, comfortable space and the staff was super helpful and informative as I ate my way through the menu like a psycho. Definitely check it out.

Tea Fusion Cafe is located at 440 E. McCoullugh Drive in University City. They’re open daily 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Love mangonadas as much as I do? Check out Cocos Locos on N. Tryon, too!