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New boba tea restaurant opens in Folsom. Owners plan to expand in the Sacramento region

A new boba tea place has opened its doors in Folsom.

On Sunday, March 19, co-owners Ahmed Farag and Hady Abou ElKheir soft-opened Teaspoon on Riley Street, one location out of a few they plan to open in Sacramento. The grand opening for the Folsom establishment is scheduled for Saturday, May 13.

Farag said he and ElKheir bought the rights for the greater Sacramento region, so no one else can open a Teaspoon in the area. Their rights span Folsom and Elk Grove.

“We’re planning to open the next store in Sacramento,” Farag said. “We have looked at a few places. We still haven’t settled on where we’re going to go. Should we go closer to downtown or should we be closer to the university?”

The ingredients are locally sourced, the fruits are fresh and the milk is organic, according to Farag.

“I think one of the things that differentiates Teaspoon is that every single cup is handmade from scratch, so we don’t really boil the tea together,” he said.


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The Teaspoon website lists most items between $4.50 and $7. The drinks are more expensive than the pastries, which include cakes, brownies and macarons.

“We have the latest tech that Teaspoon is rolling out,” Farag said. “We have kiosks for customers. When we have long lines, they can order from the kiosks.”

Joshua Falkenstein, the Folsom Teaspoon’s marketing manager, said a shop standard is its sealer machine that heats up the plastic around the lid of a cup making it airtight, so customers can get that signature break-in with their straw.

He said soon it will offer online catering and an app for people to order remotely or from DoorDash or Uber Eats.

ElKheir said in November 2022 that a growing Asian population in Folsom factored into he and his business partner’s rationale to pick Folsom as the location for their first store.

“There seems to be a reasonable amount of Asian population there, which Teaspoon benefits from, although Teaspoon is actually catering to all audiences,” ElKheir said. “We aspire to deliver boba tea infused with classical American flavors.”

The bubble tea franchise opened its first shop in Los Altos, California in 2015. Folsom’s Teaspoon is open Sunday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Fridays and Saturdays from 10 a.m to 10 p.m.