Review of the Cada Japanese Tea Shop C66010 Building block Set (not Lego)

Hello brick fans!  Welcome to the Cada C66010 Japanese Tea Shop!  That's the set we are reviewing today.  It's the third in a series of Japanese style buildings designed by Tong Xin Jun aka ExeSandBox.  The other two buildings in the series are:

Cada C66006 Japanese Steamed Bun Shop 

Cada C66007 Japanese Coffee Shop

If you loved those little buildings, you are most certainly going to want to include the Japanese Tea Shop to your collection.  The shop has 1200 pieces with full interiors within the two floors of the building.  

The exterior looks like a very authentic Japanese shop, complete with vending machine and little bonsai plants on the shop's doorstep.  There is a large utility pole right outside with transformer and street lamp.

Around back, one can view the interior of the shop by ingeniously sliding the whole back wall.  We will look at all of the interior details below.

Where to get it

Afobrick.com has all three of the Japanese inspired buildings on their website.  They have kindly provided today's set for me to review.

Feel free to check out their store, they have over 700 competitively priced building block sets, available in all sorts of themes. Free worldwide shipping for most orders.  Please use my discount code itsnotlego to save a further 5% off their already low prices.

The Set Details

• Brand: Cada
• Set: C66010 Japanese Tea Shop, designer: Tong Xin Jun
• Piece count: 1200pcs
• Numbered bags? Yes
• Stickers or printed parts? Stickers
• Missing or deformed pieces: No
• Extra parts: Yes
• Minifigures: No
• Lighting kit: included
• Brick Quality and Clutch: Excellent
• Measurements (approx): 
• Age Rating: ?+

Unboxing

The Cada Japanese Tea Shop arrived in a brown cardboard box from Afobrick.com. Inside were several bags of building blocks, two sticker sheets and two instruction booklets.  There are 57 pages on the first booklet and 115 pages on the second booklet.  I wonder why Cada just didn't print one booklet instead of two?  Same with the sticker sheets. They are small enough that they could have simply used one larger sheet of stickers.

Here's a closer look at the stickers, some with Japanese wording and the majority of them are for the canned drinks inside the vending machine.

Here's the breakdown of the bags for parts corresponding to each step of the build.

Step A consists of 6 bags

Step B consists of 6 bags

Step C consists of 5 bags

Also included are three individually wrapped transparent window pieces, a bag containing special parts for the utility pole, a bag containing the LED light string, and an assortment of baseplates.

The instruction manuals are well printed and easy to follow.  The last few pages of the second instruction manual features a complete visual parts list just like Lego manuals.

As you can see the building process has three different steps.  Step A builds the foundation and first floor of the tea shop.  Step B adds the second floor and sliding rear wall, and Step C builds the roof, and remaining accessories.  Let's dive in now!

Building Step A

The baseplate is 16 studs wide but shorter than the standard 32 stud depth of other Lego modular buildings.

Flipping it over, we see the structure of the base.  I would have much preferred that the tea shop was built on a regular 16x32 stud baseplate.  It would add so more space in the front and back of the shop.

I really like how storage was incorporated into the bottom of the staircase.  I need to do this more in my other MOC buildings.  The tea is stored in several containers and shelf drawers and fronted by a long counter.  For tea tasting there's a round table with two stools.

The front doors to the tea shop can be conveniently opened and closed by sliding each one.

Front awning installed.

You get one long LED light strip with USB plug included with the set.  You simply thread the wires around the interior of the building's first and second floor.  I used a battery pack from one of my Funwhole branded building sets to provide power for the lighting.

Building Step B

Here you can see that step B  completes the interior of the second floor.  It looks to be a tea tasting room that has a raised floor with tatami mats.  A low table and seats adron the room.  The lighting is a bit of a mess but it's been installed in the second floor.

On the front of the second floor, there is an air conditioner mounted next to the balcony.  On the other side of the balcony is some kind of utility box. It opens but there's nothing inside.  One can access the balcony from the inside via the sliding door.

The instructions for building the rear wall are split between the first and second instruction manuals.  It slides open as we will see later.  It's interesting how the designer uses the ladder piece for the rear window grill.

Building Step C

The roof is attached to the building through a series of clips.

With the roof attached, we test out how well the rear wall slides.  Pretty smooth!

The vending machine and utility pole really enhance the look of the set.  The dark blue roof tiles provide a nice contrast to the tan bricks walls.

I'm not sure why there is a rear notch in the baseplate.  I ended up removing the piece when I rebuilt the base.

Here are some of the leftover/extra pieces afterwards.

I think the Cada Japanese Tea shop is a very nice model.  Fit and finish of the bricks was excellent.  Too bad it doesn't come with any minifigures though.  I've added a few of my own for display purposes.  That little pink bike isn't included either, sorry!

The lights don't seem quite as bright as my other Cada sets, maybe my batteries are low in juice?

I'll probably see if I can replace the lighting with some from Lightailing/Briksmax in future.

Here is the Cada Japanese Tea shop pictured with the other two Japanese shops. They certainly make a nice little street scene altogether.

Also on Aliexpress, find it using the term Japanese Streetview.

I had a great time building this set, and it took me less than a day.  The only improvement to the set would be using a standard 16x32 baseplate, oh and add some minifigures!  I'm going to give this set 4.8 out of 5.  The look and the price of the Japanese Tea shop really beats out any similarly priced Lego set.  Highly recommend!

Thanks for looking, bye for now!

Cada Steamed Bun Shop and Summer Breeze Coffee Shop Picture Show (Special Promo by Afobrick.com)

Hey, what's up people, welcome back to Bricks and Figs!  I recently built both of the @exesandbox designed Japanese themed buildings for which I posted separate detailed reviews of the Steamed Bun shop and the Summer Breeze coffee shop.

You can find pictures of the individual buildings on various websites, but I've yet to come across many pictures of both the bun shop and coffee shop together, so that's what this post will do.  

For a limited time only, afobrick.com is doing a special promo, buy both the CADA C66007 coffee shop and the C66006 steamed bun shop together and get 8% off their already low prices.

The side you mostly won't see.

Drone view

Side of the bun shop

Beauty shot

Coffee shop with doors closed

The buildings really shine at night!

Hope you have enjoyed the pictures of both the Cada buildings together.  Don't forget to take advantage of the special pricing only found at AFOBRICK.com!

See ya!

Cada C66007 Summer Breeze Coffee Shop Review (Not Lego)

Hey brick fans, welcome back to Bricks and Figs!   Ready for another review?  Let's go!

Today, we will be reviewing another beautiful designed building by Exe Sandbox (instagram: @exesandbox) in partnership with Doublee_Cada blocks.  Not too long ago, I reviewed the Cada Steamed Bun Shop which was Exe Sandbox's first collaboration with Cada, and I can say that that was an awesome set.

Thanks to afobrick.com, I get to review the 1108 piece Summer Breeze Coffee Shop.  You can find this set on their on-line store right now.  Shipping is free and superfast, as I can attest to getting my set in under 2 weeks.

Here's what the building block set consists of, besides the instruction manual.  There's a small sticker sheet, an LED light string with USB adapter, and several bags of parts. Bags with the number 1 on them correspond to building instructions starting with A in the manual, and bags with the number 2 on them are to be used in steps with  the letter B.

Just like in the Steamed Bun shop, there is an introduction on the first page of the manual by ExeSandbox.  The instructions are clear and easy to follow on this set.

Here's some of the pics I took during the build.  Lots of nice detailing!  Bricks are top notch and have their own logo on them.  They don't use Gobricks but the quality is just the same.

"CaDA Bricks is a brand of building bricks created by the Double Eagle Group, located in mainland China (Shantou city). Our toy bricks are produced from high quality raw materials and certified according to leading International Safety Standards. CaDA was established in 2016 and has since developed many successful building bricks sets."

Source: https://decadastore.com/pages/about-us

About the summer breeze coffee shop, it's a smaller building that has a footprint of 17 studs wide by 19 studs deep.  There is a small sidewalk in front of the shop that's occupied by a construction pylon and what appears to be a manhole cover.  The raised platform is home to several plants and a signboard listing the coffee prices in japanese yen.

Here's a better look at the shop interior.  There's a counter that runs the width of the shop with seating for three on the stools.  A small shelf next to the counter has more plants.  The coffee machine sits on the counter with a small sink behind it.  The coffee menu on the wall is the same one on the signboard.  A large potted plant occupies another part of the counter.  Finally the back wall has a shelf and a ventilation unit.  For such a small building, this little coffee shop is packed with details.  

It's a tight squeeze behind the counter, but the barista can at least exit the shop via the side entrance with it's unique covering.  Notice the technic brick here, I think it can be used with a technic pin to attach it to the side of Cada steamed bun shop.

Here's another look at the interior.  There's a flip up window over the sink that could be used as a drive through window if one wanted to be really creative.

As with the steamed bun shop, the coffee shop is equipped with the same LED lighting.  I fed the lighting wire through a small hole in the back wall and  it snakes around the top perimeter of the shop.  You have to provide your own power supply because the building kit doesn't come with.  You can use the light's USB adapter to plug it into any device or battery pack that has a USB slot.

With the panel and sliding door installed, you really can't appreciate the interior details, which is why you'll notice that I purposely left them off in my pictures.  The lower part of the building is complete, time to move on to the shop roof.

I love the design that ExeSandbox used to create the retractable overhang in the roof.

It's controlled by this knob you turn on the rear of the building.

Another cool feature is the opening skylight with a pivoting support arm to keep it open.

Front features of the roof includes some kind of mechanical box with chrome piping. There are three small spotlights and signage for the shop.  Too bad these couldn't be lit up!

Here's the coffee shop with the roof on!  Looks amazing!  BTW, I chose to swap the positions of the sign board and the light pole.  I think it's a cleaner look this way.  And I left off the construction pylon in most of my pics, because I feel it detracts from the beauty of the shop.

Displayed with doors removed.

With canopy extended.

You can only feel the summer breeze with the windows and doors open.

Especially when you open the skylight in the roof.

Please know that the two mini figures in the pictures, do not come with the set. I added them from my collection so you can get an idea whether this set is compatible scale-wise to other Lego style modular buildings.  I think the scale of the summer breeze coffee shop is perfect.

I really enjoyed this build and the way it looks. The architecture and design really stands out.  So many details and features for such a small set, like the opening skylight, the cantilevered extension, and the sliding doors.  Even the stickers were great!  Five stars for the Cada Summer Breeze Coffee Shop!

Please check out their the afobrick.com store for this and other great Lego compatible building sets.  Don't forget to use coupon code ITSNOTLEGO at checkout to get a further discount off your purchases.

The two Cada sets look great together!   Bye and thanks for visiting Bricks and Figs!