A customer was captured on surveillance video dropping lint in his own drink before leaving a bad review of a boba shop in California.
In the footage recorded on March 13, the man can be seen taking sips of his drink before digging into his pocket and dropping an object in his own drink while seated in the Tea Hut in Millbrae. He is then seen taking photos of the drink’s surface.
The surveillance footage was reviewed after the shop received a negative review on Yelp from a customer, who goes by “Nat. A.”
The customer left a one-star review along with photos of a drink that appeared to include a piece of lint. Nat. A claimed that the health department “needs to check on” the shop for violating a health code.
The Tea Hut shared the surveillance footage on Instagram, warning followers that the customer left two “fake sabotaging reviews” on Yelp.
“Why are you doing this?,” the business wrote. “This guy left two reviews at two different locations. Luckily, our camera caught what he did to this drink.”
The owners reported the reviews to Yelp, which has now removed the negative review that included the photos of the lint.
“One of the fake sabotaging reviews got removed! Thank you so much for having our back and reporting this person. We are so touched by the overwhelming support of the community!” the owners wrote in a separate post.
In a statement to KRON4, Tea Hut owner Aaron Qian said food safety is the top priority of the small food business.
There’s no way that we would serve a product that doesn’t meet our standard. Not just me, even the tiniest restaurant will greatly pay attention to food safety. This is the basis of survival when it comes to operating a food facility.
Overall, the Tea Hut has a 4.0-star rating based on dozens of reviews. Several reviewers said the shop has “good quality tea” and has the “best service and great coffee tea.”
