Hanco’s Black milk tea with boba: Went to 5 different supermarkets in Brooklyn to look for fish sauce and could only find Thai Kitchen brand. Stopped by Hanco’s, a Vietnamese sandwich shop a few blocks from where I live, to ask where to find. They told me there were no asian grocery stores in the area and I would probably need to go to Chinatown. The sandwiches at Hanco’s were pretty good, but this bubble tea was quite bad - very diluted and milky tasting, with overly chewy boba. Might need to go to Chinatown for that too. 2.0/5.0
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Tea Hut Jasmine milk tea with boba: It’s kind of outrageous how saturated quality bubble tea shops are in the Bay Area. We’ve all become accustomed with fine-tuning our drinks to our exact specifications - with numerous toppings, sugar levels, and even the amount of ice, down to a percent. With the range of available options, tea shops are resorting to other ways of distinguishing themselves beyond ingredients, turning to the beverage’s vehicle itself: the humble cup. Here at Tea Hut, a small bubble tea shop right next to b. P... (read more) 4.0/5.0
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Bubble Tea Share Time Thai iced tea slushie: I went to the dentist yesterday and didn’t have any new cavities, which is quite a feat given the existence of this blog. Also, it’s getting hot in Berkeley. To celebrate, I got a Thai Iced Tea “slushie” with boba from Share Tea, a bubble tea shop on Shattuck in Berkeley a few blocks away from downtown. While I asked for it to be less sweet, I should have asked for it to have 0 added sweetness as it was still overly sugary. But the Thai iced tea flavor, though classic, was refreshing, and th... (read more) 3.0/5.0
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Cha House Oolong milk tea with boba: This charming Taiwanese cafe on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill, NC has a variety of snacks but specializes in bubble tea, with a mix of classic milk teas and fruit teas. I purchased their oolong milk tea at 0% sweetness since the boba are already steeped in brown sugar. The boba had a pretty good texture, though it was a tad soft for my taste. The oolong tea had a refreshing herbal flavor yet was also creamy and rich from the frothed milk. Overall, a solid and very traditional milk tea. 3.5/5.0
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Bubble Tea Sharetime Matcha milk tea with boba: This compact bubble tea shop on Shattuck in Berkeley, CA is best suited for ordering bubble tea to-go. Its proximity to my apartment, as well as its consistently good quality boba and drinks, have made it my go-to bubble tea cafe, particularly when it comes to milk tea (for fruit teas, Asha still wins). As far as Berkeley goes, the milk teas at Sharetime are better than UCha, Purple Kow, and Sweetheart Cafe, mostly because they aren't too sweet and taste more like tea than milk. On my last... (read more) 3.5/5.0
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Sweet Belly Desserts Rosie Milk Tea Soft Serve: Sweet Belly Desserts is a small shop around the corner from the 19th Street Oakland BART station. They have a rotating menu of seasonal soft serve flavors as well as mini donuts with housemade glazes and dips. I ordered just the softserve, without any toppings, which cost a little more than $5. This particular flavor is an excellent tribute to floral milk teas, capturing the herbal yet creamy essence of black milk tea along with an aromatic rose flavor. And it wasn't too sweet! Textuall... (read more) 4.0/5.0
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