Bubble Tea Rankings

I enjoy boba (bubble tea, pearl tea) a lot. I prefer plain teas (in order of typical preference: oolong, green, pu'er, white, black) with tapioca boba (honey or black/brown sugar). The perfect cup of boba for me is a strong flavorful fresh tea with a small amount of sweetener and boba. When I say cheap, it means anything under $4, while mid-range is $4 to $6 and expensive is anything above $6 (as of 2025).

The dates indicate when I first went a place (unless it has since closed, in which case there will be two dates). Here is my ranked list of boba purveyors, through the lens of those preferences.

1. OROBAE (Irvine, CA) 2022-2024

   OROBAE has some incredible tea. They focus on oolongs, but they're not too harsh or earthy. It has all of the flavor without any bitterness. The boba (somehow?) absorbs the tea flavor, so it feels more like an extension of the drink rather than a topping.

   The moment the Gyokuro finishes its hallowed journey, you are teleported to 八女市. You can smell the crisp ocean air, marvel at the beatiful mountains decorating the horizon. If other teas play a 128kbps MP3 song, OROBAE conducts a world class orchestra. Hands-down the best tea I've ever had.

   • ⭐ Overall rating: 9.3/10
   • 📍 Distance from OROBAE: 0 miles!
   • 🧋 Favorite drinks: Gyokuro Green Tea, Metal Buddha Oolong, Rising Phoenix Oolong
   

2. BoBaPoP (San Diego, CA) 2024

   BoBaPoP looks like a normal boba place but has seriously amazing tea.

   They use a blender or some kind of high-speed mixing device like OROBAE, I'm not sure what the sweetener exactly is, but the tea is otherworldly. They also have a really nice selection of niche, high quality oolongs (e.g., Tie Guan Yin, Alishan, Dong Pian, Jin Xuan...). Just a super consistent, high quality place. The boba is always perfectly cooked. No huge lines, no standing outside or gold embossed bags, just really good tea.

   (Note: they originally started in the DMV, DC/Maryland/Virginia, but the DMV location is hot garbage! Really sad how they cater to the market by making exclusively sugar slushies.)

   • ⭐ Overall rating: 9.0/10
   • 📍 Distance from OROBAE: 75 miles
   • 🧋 Favorite drinks: Osmanthus Oolong, Tie Guan Yin Oolong, Dong Pian Winter Tea
   

3. 茶工廠 / CHA-KOUJYOU (Osaka, Japan) 2023

   Definitely the best "classical" tea I've had. OROBAE uses fancy coffee making machines, which obviously, work very well... but there's something cool about the setup 茶工廠 has. It literally translates to Tea Factory, which I think is a neat name, and pretty accurate for the chemistry lab they have going on.

   It took me forever to find this place, because it was in an underground mall, just sitting there on the corner with its little CO2 sensor and single employee. The drinks were made quickly (maybe a minute per drink) and were cheap (around 450 yen, or like $3.50). Tea was amazing, boba was expertly prepared. And they had a little spot to take a picture of your drink.

   • ⭐ Overall rating: 8.9/10
   • 📍 Distance from OROBAE: 8,000 miles or something
   • 🧋 Favorite drinks: Four Seasons Oolong, Jasmine
   

4. Wushiland / ooTea (San Diego, CA) 2021

   I don't get the chance to go to Wushiland often, but they're very good. They have everything you would expect, a fairly limited menu (which I like), and their base teas are excellent. Their boba is also really high quality. It won't change your life, but yeah, it's good. If I had to complain about something, they're not super quick.

   • ⭐ Overall rating: 8.6/10
   • 📍 Distance from OROBAE: 70 miles
   • 🧋 Favorite drink: Four Seasons Tea

5. Xing Fu Tang (Flushing, NY) 2023

   Xing Fu Tang had a good selection of teas, maybe lacking a bit on classical/traditional teas. But they had an abundance of style. The whole shop feels like a boba performance. For one of the drinks, they blowtorch the top of the milk cap for you (in plain view, of course-- the glass panes reveal all). They prepare their boba in a big wok right by the front door. I got the jasmine with honeycomb, the boba was incredible, the honeycomb was great, the tea was stellar. Although, too expensive (~$6).

   • ⭐ Overall rating: 8.38/10
   • 📍Distance from OROBAE: 2800 miles
   • 🧋Favorite drink: Jasmine Honeycomb
   

6. HNTea (Irvine, CA) 2024

   One of the only places I've seen sell Pu'er tea. Very yummy, nice and complex flavor. Sweetener was also quite good, but not OROBAE or Tiger Sugar tier.

   • Rating: 8.21/10
   • Favorite drink: Pu'er tea (I forgot the name)
   

7. Cha X Ten (Tokyo, Japan) 2023

   The only thing rivaling the tea and boba (both of which are flavorful and excellent) is the hole-in-the-wall atmosphere. Best experienced when it's raining, this place seems to be like a mini convenience store in addition to tea shop.

   • Rating: 8.20/10
   • Favorite drink: Jasmine tea

8. Boba Guys (San Francisco, CA) 2023

   I'm a sucker for the jasmine... Boba Guys did it well. And the brown sugar boba was good too.

   • Rating: 8.20/10
   • Favorite drink: Jasmine tea

9. Tiger Sugar (Ellicott City, MD) 2022

   Suprisingly flavorful base tea, and nice boba. Especially with less sugar added, it's very good (25% or 50%, since 100% tastes like 150%. They are Tiger Sugar, I suppose). Some quirks though, the boba tastes kind of like raisins or dates, not sure how they prepare it. And they feature a lot of dessert drinks (oreo, chocolate) rather than the pure teas I'd be more interested in. And it's also too expensive. I usually choose to go to Bengong's over Tiger Sugar, even though Tiger Sugar's teas are (usually) objectively better.

   • ⭐Overall rating: 8.20/10
   • 📍Distance from OROBAE: 2,600 miles
   • 🧋Favorite drink: Golden Oolong Tea
   

10. Yifang Taiwan Fruit Tea (San Francisco, CA) 2023

    Supremely good green tea.

    • Rating: 8.19/10
    • Favorite drink: Pouchong Green Tea

11. Yipbee Tea House (San Diego, CA) 2023

    Strong contender, probably the 'smoothest' tea I've ever had (which I didn't know was possible). Boba was great as well.

    • Rating: 8.19/10
    • Favorite drink: Jasmine tea

12. Yun Tea House (San Diego, CA) 2024

    This may be the best reviewed boba shop I've been to (in terms of Google maps, like a 4.9 stars?), which makes sense because this is a crowd pleasing establishment. 1) They do sell fresh tea (with no "milk"), but they don't put it on the menu! Makes sense since most casual people just want a milk tea and this avoids them ordering the wrong thing. 2) Use an espresso machine to brew the tea, quick and strong flavor. Although there was leaf sediment in the drink. 3) Street cred from Chinese character in the logo (cloud). 4) Nice waiting line, pretty quick servce (a la OMOMO). Anyway, the boba was quite good, I asked for a fresh tea and predictably the person preparing it did not notice and instead made a milk tea, which caused me to experience sadness. I still drank it and it was good, had a nice and deep flavor, but I wish I could have tasted the tea on its own.

    • Rating: 8.19/10
    • Favorite drink: Dark phoenix tea
    

13. Chun Yang Tea (Flushing, NY) 2023

    Tasty tea, great boba. Fairly cheap.

    • Rating: 8.18/10
    • Favorite drink: Mountain Tea

14. Sunright (Irvine, CA) 2022

    The tea was tasty and high-quality, and there is also a pretty unusual and Americanized selection (eg., teas + citruses, lattes), which I think works well for them. The establishment itself is also unique, they don't take orders in person, it's all automated with a set of kiosks. I'm personally not a fan of that, but it did seem efficient. The cups were remarkably nice, a thicker dithered plastic.

    • ⭐ Overall rating: 8.18/10
    • 📍Distance from OROBAE: 2.5 miles
    • 🧋Favorite drink: Sunright Fruit Tea (four seasons + citruses)

15. Cha for Tea (Irvine, CA) 2021

    Great jasmine tea, very flavorful. Boba isn't anything to write home about, but the tea carries it far.

    • Rating: 8.18/10
    • Favorite drink: Jasmine tea

16. Bengong's Tea (Ellicott, MD) 2022

    Decent tea, sometimes the osmanthus oolong is very good. Sometimes! Usually on weekends. I even tried tipping (20%) to see if they had another, different secret jug of the great osmanthus oolong. They didn't. Consistent boba, good aesthetics, overall good place. I hope they give the good tea brewer a full time job.

    It's also connected to a Chinese (Xi'an style?) restaurant called Chin, which is pretty good. But no bonus boba points for that.

    • Rating: 8.17/10
    • Favorite drink: Osmanthus oolong

17. OMOMO (Irvine, CA) 2022

    Not a bad place, but a little too close to Orobae to be competitive. They have a nice shop, good selection (focus on many varieties and combinations of teas). They have nice cups similar to Sunright. Tea was pretty alright, a bit bitter, but high quality.

    • Rating: 8.16/10
    • Favorite drink: Jasmine tea
    

18. 7 Leaves Cafe (Irvine, CA) 2022

    Very similar flavor to Cha for Tea, perhaps a bit inferior. I enjoyed the jasmine a lot. Right next to Sunright though, may be worth just going there.

    • Rating: 8.13/10
    • Favorite drink: Jasmine tea

19. AtBay (Oslo, Norway) 2023

    The fruit tea here had a super unique tasty flavor and the boba was quite good. I've never tasted any tea or fruit tea like it. It was slightly roasted but also somehow fatty (in a good way). Their tea selections were on the dessert-y side, but they still had some strong plain teas and it was overall pretty good.

    • Rating: 8.13/10
    • Favorite drink: Passion fruit hojicha
    

20. Teaism (Washington, D.C.) 2022

    Got a nice jasmine tea here. This is a cafe style place that sells a lot of different kinds of (good looking) tea. Predictably, the tapioca was okay, but the tea was excellent. (2025 update: I went back and got a couple oolongs, they were really good.)

    • Rating: 8.12/10
    • Favorite drink: Silver Needle Jasmine Tea

21. Yifang Taiwan Fruit Tea (Tokyo, Japan) 2023

    I didn't get the fruit tea, but their normal tea (four seasons oolong) was above average, and the tapioca was excellent, but they only had enough for (n-1) drinks, but I thought she said the only had enough for one... So I picked my top choice to get the tapioca, and that one got none :( Totally my fault though. Good tea. The Yifang locations tend to vary a lot in my experience.

    • Rating: 8.11/10
    • Favorite drink: Four seasons oolong

22. BOBIBOBI (Santiago, Chile) 2024

    Very happily surprised with BOBIBOBI "Innovación del té". While I did feel bad for interrupting the kdrama the staff was watching when we walked in, the jasmine there was quite good. Just some well brewed tea. The boba was nice and consistent. The sweetener was tasty (some kind of honey).

    • Rating: 8.10/10
    • Favorite drink: Jasmine tea
    

23. Redstraw (Irvine, CA) 2024

    A good, clean, refreshing iced oolong. Not as complex or flavorful as most oolongs, but it has a nice subtle taste. They also gain points for having a large selection of pure teas.

    • Rating: 8.09/10
    • Favorite drink: Osmantus oolong
    

24. Kung Fu Tea (San Diego, CA) 2018

    Kung Fu Tea is a good place. They do their job pretty well. Half the time when you walk in to the shop it feels like a sauna, so that's a plus. Their green tea is what I usually get, and it's pretty consistent and flavorful (moreso than say, Gong Cha's green tea).

    Worth noting, once (2023-01-21), I went and ordered a green tea but they gave me something that was clearly not green tea. Maybe they thought I ordered peach grime toilet water? (I ordered another one after that, thinking it was a fluke, and got lemon-flavored sugar water. I suspect they ran out of green tea and just wouldn't admit it? (Then I got another, a black tea, and it tasted like rotten pepsi with added sewage extract. Maybe they (correctly) thought I was a sucker and wanted to see how many times I try.)). In any case, good place, they have a lot of locations too.

    (2024-11-08 Update) The Kung Fu Tea closest to me has become wildly inconsistent in the past couple months. It's almost impossible to get good tea there. It's like russian roulette except it's fully loaded and the bullets are piss, rotten coffee, and memories of green tea. I know some other locations are still good though.

    • Rating: 8.09/10
    • Favorite drink: Green tea, Strawberry lemon green tea

25. 85°C (San Diego, CA) 2024

    An impressive tea showing for a bakery. It is a Taiwanese brand, so that makes sense. The jasmine I got there was good, although a bit bitter. The boba was good, nothing special but not offensive.

    • Rating: 8.08/10
    • Favorite drink: Jasmine tea
    

26. Serenitea (Somewhere in CA) 2018

    We happened to be near this shop once, and it kind of feels like a fever dream, but the jasmine tea was incredible. It was before I had much experience with boba though, so I'll assume naivety and downrank it.

    • Rating: 8.06/10
    • Favorite drink: Jasmine Tea

27. The Boba Co. (San Diego, CA) 2024

    Actually very good tea. Spacious inside area (a Poway classic), but I was the only person there. I expected the tea to be really bad because only milk teas were on the menu, but if you asked they sold straight teas. Minus points for a super generic name.

    • Rating: 8.02/10
    • Favorite drink: Osmanthus oolong
    

28. Teado (Ellicott, MD) 2022

    Good generalist tea shop. Kind of a better version of ShareTea.

    • Rating: 8.01/10
    • Favorite drink: Strawberry green tea

29. The Alley (Irvine, CA) 2022 and (Tokyo, Japan) 2023

    Nice aesthetics and selection, very cohesive theming (deer themed, for some reason). Jasmine tea was good, very similar to the others in this tier bracket. They have a lot of "deerioca" milk teas which seems to be their main selling point, so I might not be getting the full experience.

    • Rating: 8.00/10
    • Favorite drink: Jasmine tea

30. Komma Tea (Hanover, MD) 2024

    I didn't expect to be impressed by a tucked-away boba shop fighting for your attention in a massive Maryland concrete mall hellscape. They have some fierce competition, like... Kokee tea? Tutti frutti boba? (lmao)

    It was pretty decent. Jasmine and assam black tea were watery, but the roasted oolong was pretty competitive. The boba had a very smooth flavor and decent consistency, not sure what sweetener it was. Maybe just simple sweetener.

    • Rating: 7.99/10
    • Favorite drink: Roasted oolong

31. Sugar Plum and Pastry (Ellicott, MD) 2024

    Pretty decent! Just a nice brewed green tea. And a good atmosphere in the shop. The buying kiosk is the most unique one I've seen, it looks like it's made in plain HTML. It also did not work.

    • Rating: 7.991/10
    • Favorite drink: Green tea

32. Urban Bubble (San Diego, CA) 2023

    They have good tea, but they're mainly focused on desert-style drinks. So there's not much effort put into the plain teas.

    • Rating: 7.98/10
    • Favorite drink: Dragonfruit green tea ("Dragon Delight")

33. Pearl Lady (Kyoto, Japan) 2023

    Blending into a megamall complex like any good tea shops, Pearl Lady had a solid green tea and, to her credit, very good pearls.

    • Rating: 7.98/10

34. Y-Tea (Ashburn, VA) 2024

    Y Tea? Well, it's pretty good! The only place I've seen serve 32oz boba in a square container (which I did not get). Flavorful tea, nicely prepared and sweetened boba. Pretty decent!

    • Rating: 7.97/10
    • Favorite drink: Jasmine green tea
    

35. Da Boba (San Diego, CA) 2023

    Tea is pretty good, da boba is... mid.

    • Rating: 7.96/10

36. Tous Les Jours (Ellicott, MD) 2023

    Actually more of a bakery than a boba shop, and one of the few Korean places I've had boba from, they have an excellent matcha. And really good pastries. Boba is not up to the standard specialized shop quality, but the tea pulls its weight.

    • Rating: 7.96/10
    • Favorite drink: Matcha tea

37. Quickly (San Francisco, CA) 2023

    Decent overall tea, good boba, and the drinks were out... quickly. Kind of a bright-colors-and-fruit-milk tea place, but still had some good options.

    • Rating: 7.92
    • Favorite drink: Jasmine green tea
    

38. Jungle Tea (San Diego, CA) 2023

    They weren't kidding with the jungle theme. Deep in the bowels of Mira Mesa, is this shop. Which had suprisingly good tea, but they were out of boba when we got there :( Still, the drink was good.

    • Rating: 7.90/10

39. Yo! Tea (Pittsburgh, PA) 2024

    I really wanted to be impressed by this tea place, since it has "boba studio" in the name and had a lot of green flags in the menu. But the tea was pretty flavorless, and I was not impressed. The first sip was pretty OK. The boba was passable.

    • Rating: 7.88/10
    • Favorite drink: Osmanthus oolong
    

40. Bubble Tea Cafe (Rockville, MD) 2023

    Good jasmine tea. It had the "mushy" boba that a lot of smaller shops do, but the tea was pretty good. Possibly the most generic name.

    • Rating: 7.88/10
    • Favorite drink: Jasmine tea

41. Blacksugar Boba (San Francisco, CA) 2023

    They gave me jasmine milk tea (which I did not order), just like meet fresh... But it was pretty decent.

    • Rating: 7.88/10
    • Favorite drink: Jasmine milk tea

42. Meet Fresh (San Diego, CA) 2022

    Meet Fresh also sells some food, but it's all tapioca/desert/sugar themed. I got the jasmine tea and they gave me jasmine milk tea :/. It was good though. They also have a webapp that reads off orders in a TTS voice, which is super obnoxious and also inaccurate (I consumed my order and left before the webapp called my number).

    • Rating: 7.86/10
    • Favorite drink: Jasmine tea

43. Burger Queen (Santiago, Chile) 2024

    This is the most enigmatic and cursed boba shop I've ever been to. You cannot find it on any map, digital or physical. It's right next to central station, just exit and walk right. They close at 5PM. It's a burger king clone, despite there being a real burger king 20 steps away. My language overlap with the employees is exactly zero.

    They have some pretty decent boba! I got a lemon jasmine, the flavor was good although there were too many limes in it. Boba was fairly consistent, flavor was OK. Tea definitely caried the drink. The drinks were very slow to come out but we did order seven. Thanks to [redacted] for ordering in Mandarin for us.

    • Rating: 7.83/10
    • Favorite drink: limon jazmin
    

44. Arteazean (San Diego, CA) 2023

    Very decent and flavorful. I always get this place and Presotea confused, they're like, the same.

    • Rating: 7.81/10

45. CoCo Tea (Tokyo, Japan) 2023

    Tea was good, and added little drawings to the cups :) Didn't blow my socks off but a good experience.

    • Rating: 7.8/10

46. Happy Lemon (San Diego, CA) 2023

    I got the jasmine tea, and I wanted to be impressed, but it was pretty underwhelming in both quality and flavor. Still good, but I think my expectations were too high. Although I went again, and the lemon one was much better.

    • Rating: 7.8/10
    • Favorite drink: Lemon green tea

47. Presotea (San Diego, CA) 2023

    They use an espresso machine. Neat! Pretty decent tea. But not as good as I was expecting. I think they're skimping on the tea leaf density since they mostly sell milk tea.

    • Rating: 7.8/10

48. Tastea (West Coast) 2023

    Seemingly unrelated to the Midwest franchise, this vendor is like a blend between ShareTea and Jamba Juice. More typical slushies, drinks, weird combinations. Decent quality, but my socks stayed on, and I prefer shops on the other side of the quality<-->options spectrum.

    • Rating: 7.8/10
    • Favorite drink: that one strawberry one

49. ShareTea (San Diego, CA) 2018

    ShareTea has been good to me. They may not have crazy drinks, or be crazy good, but they have an impressive level of consistency.

    • Rating: 7.7/10
    • Favorite drink: Strawberry green tea

50. Taiwan Bubble Tea (Milan, Italy) 2024

    Fair play, Taiwan Bubble Tea in Milan. The tea was OK, nothing special, but the preparation was great. They only sell fruit teas, but the selection of fruit is on display. When you say "mango green tea", she picks up a mango and puts it in the tea right in front of you. So that is a pretty strong affirmation that it's not a syrup. It was pretty decent.

    • Rating: 7.7/10
    • Favorite drink: Mango green tea

51. Tsaocaa (Pittsburgh, PA) 2024

    I was reallllly disappointed with this one. It looked so good from the menu and the vibes. Like four types of green tea, six types of oolong, a large fresh brew collection... but I ordered two teas with 30% sweet and got two milk caps with 0% sweet. They did the bobapop/orobae thing with the teas in the back as well, but without the sugar I just don't think it works. So it did not have a very strong flavor and I didn't want the milk cap. But I think it would have been really good if it was prepared correctly. Perhaps I will re-visit at some point.

    • Rating: 7.695/10
    • Favorite drink: cloud mist green tea

52. Spot of Tea (Washington, D.C.) 2025

    It was fine... I got the passionfruit green tea. Usually I just avoid shops that have a "tea" menu composed entirely of different types of fruits and sugar, since I know they don't sell the type of thing I'm looking for. But this one seemed decent. The tea was not good but the fruit syrup was OK.

    • Rating: 7.692/10
    • Favorite drink: Passionfruit green tea
    

53. Kokee Tea (Ellicott, MD) 2022

    This shop feels like the same flavor as snoice, a new-age focus on aesthetics, specialty drinks, and Brand. The tea and tapioca were both good though. They made the drinks super quick, probably because they only have a few options and all the components prepared.

    • Rating: 7.69/10
    • Favorite drink: Georgia on My Mind (peach green tea)

54. Gong Cha (East Coast) 2022

    Gong Cha on the east coast, at least the one I tried, is much better than its west coast counterpart-- tea, bubbles, all around. Still not great.

    • Rating: 7.68/10
    • Favorite drink: Strawberry Green Tea

55. Teamania (Rockville, MD) 2023

    More of a bakery than a boba shop (they actually don't even sell bubble tea, just tea), the jasmine tea I got was interesting. Pretty dark flavor and had an artificial almost plasticy flavor to it at first, but it tasted better as I drank it.

    • Rating: 7.68/10
    • Favorite drink: Jasmine tea

56. Jumbo Jumbo (Ellicott, MD) 2024

    Technically this is a Taiwanese street food shop and not a boba shop, but it was recommended by my dentist as a boba shop. Sad to say... not impressed :( It was a good color but it tasted like water. Perhaps milk tea was more the target audience.

    • Rating: 7.68/10
    • Favorite drink: Jasmine tea
    

57. Kyoto Matcha (Ellicott, MD) 2023

    The boba cake was really good. But this isn't a desert rankings list. The only tea they had was matcha (as one may have predicted from the name), it had a very deep green color, but it was not all that flavorful. Not bad, but the one from Tous Les Jours was way better. And it gets extra points because you can get other good deserts.

    • Rating: 7.67/10
    • Favorite drink: Matcha green tea

58. Taichi (Columbia, MD) 2022

    The aesthetics:taste ratio is unfortunately much higher than average for this shop. The tea/cups/presentation is great, but the actual flavor leaves a bit to be desired.

    • Rating: 7.65/10
    • Favorite drink: Strawberry green tea

59. Yaya Tea (Flushing, NY) 2023

    Tea was aggressively mediocre. However, one thing I liked, is that the base tea does not include any sweetener, and is cheaper. I suppose another way of phrasing that is that sweetener costs extra...

    • Rating: 7.63/10
    • Favorite drink: Jasmine tea

60. TP Tea (Irvine, CA) 2023

    I had high expectations, but the tea was bitter and not super flavorful. I did wait a while before drinking it, so perhaps it would have been better to drink it right after buying it.

    • Rating: 7.6/10
    • Favorite drink: Tie Guan Yin Tea

61. Snoice (Spring Valley, CA) 2021

    Snoice has some very fancy drinks and they sell boba by the JUG. They get points for that. But, they only have a few options, and they're always just made from concentrate. You can't ask for a less-sweet drink, which you probably will want to, because they are very sugary.

    • Rating: 7.5/10
    • Favorite drink: Galaxy Far, Far Away (butterfly pea tea and strawberry lemonade)

62. It's Boba Time (San Diego, CA) 2022

    Not bad, but not great. Too sweet, tea tasted average. Similar to snoice but loses out on style. Perhaps their "normal" teas are better. Suffice to say it was not boba time.

    • Rating: 7.4/10
    • Favorite drink: Sunset Tea (butterfly pea tea and green tea, I think, the employee didn't know)

63. DingTea (San Diego, CA) 2019

    I've heard a lot of people give DingTea a lot of praise, but I don't see it. They're alright. Depending on the day, the jasmine is pretty decent.

    • Rating: 7.33/10
    • Favorite drink: Jasmine tea

64. Tapioca Heaven (San Diego, CA) 2016-2023

    Tapioca Heaven feels like home. This was where I first got boba (thanks Mikey). They have a good selection. The tea is honestly not very good, but it is a charming small spot and you're paying for the memories. (Update [2024-07-27]: Tapioca Heaven was bulldozed and replaced by The Alley... rest in peace.)

    • Rating: 7.3/10
    • Favorite drink: Strawberry fusion tea

65. Dok Khao (Columbia, MD) 2024

    Officially a Thai place that sells boba, Dok Khao is a great place to get boba if you want to be put into a sugar coma. All the drinks are made from pre-mixed concentrate. The boba was fine. All I can say for sure is that the price of the tea correlates with dollar amount.

    • Rating: 7.3/10
    • Favorite drink: Pink lady matcha

66. Camellia Rd (San Diego, CA) 2023

    I really want to like Camellia Rd, they do everything right... except have good tea.

    • Rating: 7.2/10

67. TeaStation (San Diego, CA) 2022

    TeaStation is interesting, they have a ton of wild drinks I've never heard of, and their boba (the actual tapioca balls) is pretty good. But they also have the ugly plastic lids, the ones you don't punch your straw through. More importantly, even though they have a big menu, it's a gamble whether the drink is going to be amazing, OK, or awful. That becomes more of an issue than you might expect given their non-standard selection. (2024 note: They have rebranded to Bei Yuan Tea & Boba).

    • Rating: 5/10 to 8/10
    • Favorite drink: King's Tea

68. Matcha Cafe Maiko (San Diego, CA) 2024

    I wasn't going to get anything at this cafe until I saw they had rose jasmine tea, which is like two flowers and sounds really good. Unfortunately it was very mediocre, the tea was weak and the boba was unevenly cooked. The rose flavor was just a syrup. I liked eating the petals though. I still enjoyed it but I wouldn't go back.

    • Rating: 7.1/10
    • Favorite drink: eh
    

69. Bubblelicious (Chicago, IL) 2022

    Not as bad as I thought it would be, but it seems to miss the mark on a lot of important things. I got jasmine with aloe (the only plain jasmine on the menu), but that was not a winning combo in terms of flavor. The base tea tasted decent, but strawberry and jasmine or complimentary fruit would have been better. And it was too expensive.

    • Rating: 7.05/10
    • Favorite drink I guess: Jasmine aloe

70. RoyalTea (Clarksville, Maryland) 2024

    Utterly forgettable. Just super mid tea. Although I do appreciate that some shops are exploring the latent namespaceo of tea puns.

    • Rating: 7.04/10
    • Favorite drink: Jasmine green tea

71. QQTea (Milan, Italy) 2024

    Yeah, it's fine I guess. Super mediocre tea, the kind that is definitely meant to be a side character to the milk's protagonist. The most interesting thing was the walls, which were covered with sticky notes. I did make an addition :)

    • Rating: 7.03/10
    • Favorite drink: Green tea

72. Tastea (Midwest) 2020

    Feels like a worse re-skin of Tapioca Heaven. Gets extra points for being the only boba shop (at the time of writing) in a 200 mile radius.

    • Rating: 7.02/10
    • Favorite drink: Strawberry tea

73. Pony Bubble Tea (Torino, Italy) 2024

    Yeah, sorry... it's not good. The boba was fine but the tea was very mediocre. It had the hallmark flavor of tea that exists only as a medium to serve sugar and milk.

    • Rating: 6.98/10
    • Favorite drink I guess: Jasmine aloe

74. Boba Cha (Oslo, Norway) 2023

    Super bland tea. Exactly what you would expect. If I was dreaming that I was in a mediocre boba shop, it would taste exactly like what I got here. Overly sweet.

    • Rating: 6.9/10
    • Favorite drink: N/A

75. Gong Cha (West Coast) 2019

    Gong Cha is where you go when DingTea is closed.

    • Rating: 6.8/10
    • Favorite drink: Mango Tea

76. Hamar Asia Mat (Hamar, Norway) 2023

    I don't know if it's fair to rate this one, since it's a boba shop inside of an Asian market, in a small town in Norway, but uhh yeah it was mediocre. My language overlap with the shopkeeper was exactly zero but we got by with some good ol' pointing and guessing. That all amounted to me getting the brown bubble tea, out of brown, purple, green, and blue. Honestly it was okay for what I was expecting. Very sugary.

    • Rating: 6.75/10
    • Favorite drink: Brown

77. Sushi Do (Catonsville, MD) 2024

    They try, but the tea here tastes like cherry cough medicine. Not enjoyable. Tapioca was OK.

    • Rating: 6.7/10
    • Favorite drink: ...

78. Tea Monks (Carlsbad, CA) 2023

    This was an interesting place, in a mall (like some really good places), but they had this insane cup, the largest size of cup available that I've ever seen. It was like a 7-11 double gulp, size of a small child. I can't imagine drinking that with how sugary the drink was (even when asking for light sweetener).

    • Rating: 6.4/10
    • Favorite drink: N/A

79. Taste Tea (East Coast) 2023

    I guess the "tasty taste-tea" play on words is common, because this is the third unaffiliated chain called some variation of that. Anyway of those it's also the third best. The tea is super weak. It's hard to taste in milk teas, and tea alone could pass for water from a broken filter. I finished the drink but it didn't bring me any joy.

    • Rating: 6.3/10
    • Favorite drink: Green tea

80. Seaside (Irvine, CA) 2022

    Definitely not a tea shop, but they sell green thai tea + jasmine bubble tea. It had so much sugar I almost chucked my pearls and needed a pancreas transplant. Great vibes though.

    • Rating: 6.1/10
    • Favorite drink: Thai/jasmine tea, I guess

81. Vivi Bubble Tea (Chicago, IL) 2022

    Aesthetically a very interesting place. They did the thing where they give me a smoothie instead of a real drink, but it was still pretty liquidy, and the boba was not bad at all. I went again to a different location, and the fruit tea I got was sickeningly sweet. The whole shop feels like if Lisa Frank and American Girl went goth and started selling insulin bombs.

    • Rating: 5.5/10
    • Favorite drink: N/A

82. DaYung's Tea (San Diego, CA) 2021

    I was expecting something amazing when the tea costs 6 dollars... but I was very disappointed. More like Die Young. One of the very few times I didn't finish the drink. Ice blended "teas"...

    9/10 times I have been disappointed with a drink is when I purchase a real, liquid beverage, but then they start the crunch machine and give me a freezy-pop strawberry ice salad from hell. Why is it so hard to tell what's an ice-blended drink from the menu? Am I just stupid? Who enjoys those? Yeah, I love ice fishing for tapioca while FDA-approval-pending Pink 40 seeps into my bloodstream.

    • Rating: 3/10
    • Favorite drink: Leaving