Boba tier list

February 19, 2024

for context, my go to orders at most places are:

• normal milk tea
• real fruit milk tea (like jooy)
• (real/smashed) taro, milk-based drink (if available)
• 50% sugar, less/no ice, bubbles/jelly
• kind of a fruit tea hater unless it’s real fruit
• i live in nyc, so most of these are based on nyc locations
• i recommend and personally seek out A-tier and above when i want boba

S

• xing fu tang - great bubbles, great tea, has taro drink
• jooy - PERSIMMON DRINK, amazing rotating menus, real fruits, good combo of fruit/milk

A

• heytea - great fruit milk teas, like jooy
• 50-lan - amazing milk tea flavor, but not super into the golden bubbles
• chi cha san chen - great tea flavor, mid boba pearls though
• yomies - not really boba, but like them bc they are doing smth different and i like the taste of beijing yogurt

B

• molly tea - very good if you’re into jasmine tea flavor, but i’m just not that into it and think it’s just trendy (great branding though)
• imilky - taro
• moge - taro, the og smashed taro drink for me
• chun yang
• tiger sugar
• mott st eatery, corner zhen pin cafe - nice homey drinks (grass jelly + sago)
• miss dus - real fruit, but i don’t seek it out
• debutea
• kft - sentimental rating??
• teado - the tiny chinatown shop that only lets one group in at a time, NOT the chain; i like the tea flavor/customization, but i have no idea how they stay in business lol + it is never that good
• random cold milk tea at cantonese places - pretty hard to go wrong; i would look for places that serve hong kong style milk tea

C

• gong cha
• biao sugar
• teazzi - tbd
  • mung bean smoothie was really good
• onezo - tbd
• alley
• tenren
• boba guys
• yifang

D

• vivi <2
• coco
• utea

glossary

tbd - to be determined bc i’ve only been there once or twice and would try again

<2 - had it less than (or equal to) two times, but would not try again

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Thanks for reading :)

Last updated April 26, 2025