Chatime VS Serenitea

Manila has been hit with the milk tea craze for months now. There have been a lot of tea shops cropping up around the Metro. Notorious among these are Serenitea and Chatime. People would actually line up in their stalls for a good 15-30 minutes just to order (I'm guilty of this)!

 I first tried Chatime in Landmark Makati ordering the Pearl Milk Tea and it actually had me hooked! I've never craved for any Starbucks beverage so was I surprised when I found myself craving for Chatime's Pearl Milk Tea! When I had the chance, usually every weekend, I would drop by Landmark, Makati just to get my fix.

Comparison after the jump!

Since I've been staying near the Burgos Circle in BGC while waiting for the final touches in our condo, I've had Serenitea almost everyday. It's primarily due to proximity. If I hadn't lost my wallet, together with Serenitea's loyalty card, I would already have redeemed two (2) complimentary large milk teas from them with a third on the way (and that's just within a month!). To get the free drink, you'd need to have accumulated 10 stickers (one sticker for one large drink).

Being that I've already downed more milk teas in my lifetime than I have any Starbucks beverage, here's my comparison of the two based on the milk tea variety with pearls as sinker.

Criteria	Serenitea	Chatime
Price	Large milk tea drink is usually at PhP 105.00	Large drink is at PhP 90.00 for Pearl Milk Tea. Cheaper. Even the large Roasted Milk Tea with additional Pearl as sinkers just totals PhP 100.00.
Sinkers	You can combine sinkers (choice of pana cotta, pearl, perilla, green tea, etc) at no extra cost.	AFAIK, when I order pearl milk tea at Chatime, then all I get for sinkers is the pearl. When I ordered the roasted milk tea and added PhP 15.00 for the pearl sinkers, I assume I'd need to add for every additional sinker. Kindly correct me if I'm mistaken.
Pearl sinker	Smaller. Sometimes the drink has little bits of the pearl sinkers which I don't like.	Bigger compared to the Serenitea sinkers. Texture for both is similar.
Milk/Tea Ratio	If you prefer more tea to milk, then Serenitea's your bet. Serenitea's Roasted Milk Tea definitely has a stronger tea taste compared to Chatime's Roasted Milk Tea.	If you prefer milk to tea, then Chatime is for you.
Sugar/Ice Options	Serenitea offers sugar options i.e. 75%, 50%, 25% and I guess 0% should you prefer. Haven't noticed any display giving the customer option with regards to ice preference though I've definitely overheard one customer asking for less ice. I assume Serenitea accommodated that request.	Chatime offers ice preference as well as sugar level preference.
Choices	Is it just how Serenitea lays out the tea choices in the Burgos Circle branch that makes me think that they offer more tea choices than Chatime?	Is it because the display in the Landmark branch just includes 4 photos of the beverages that they are offering and just lists the others?

What has been your experience with the two? Would you agree with the above?

*Serenitea drink shown above is actually cranberry with perilla and green tea. I normally order the milk tea variant with pearl sinkers but that night, they've run out of pearl sinkers to I thought it was a good time to try something else (as of this writing, the cranberry tea still sits in the ref).