LDNGuide
Where To Get Your Bubble Tea Fix In London
The best places to get fruit teas, milk teas, and satisfy your tapioca craving.
Sometimes the only thing that can improve a tough day, or your existence generally, is watching a scoop of fresh brown sugar tapioca be plopped—yes, plopped—into a cup. Pair that with some freshly brewed tea, fruit boba, and the anticipation of that first sugary sip, and there’s nothing quite like it. From warming milk teas, and crème brûlée syrup, to refreshing ice teas, and cheesy toppings, here are eight of our favourite places when we desperately need some bubble tea in our system.
The Spots
The Alley 鹿角巷
This popular Taiwanese chain has got everything in terms of flavours, from iced matcha dalgona coffee, to watermelon fruit yoghurt tea. But the reason you should come to their Holborn spot is for the brown sugar deerioca crème brûlée milk. Yes, you heard that right. Crème brûlée in liquid form, a.k.a a sugar fiend’s dream come true. The milk tea is light and goes perfectly well with the toasted caramel-like crème brûlée syrup. It’s got high ‘warm cup of milk before bed’ energy, and we’re very into it.
Firstly, this King’s Cross cafe is adorable. Secondly, it makes some very tasty bubble tea. Although it’s not the first of Bao’s spots to have bubble tea, it is the first to have a full-on bubble tea section in their menu. The bubble tea options range from a classic bubble milk tea, to salted custard bubble tea, and a mocha bubble tea with coconut foam. You’ll find a generous scoop of chewy tapioca at the bottom of a sundae glass filled with milk tea, topped with some milk foam so perfectly shaped it looks like it’s out of a cartoon.
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CoCo Fresh Tea & Juice
If you walk past this Dean Street spot and don’t see a queue of at least seven people waiting down the road, then they’re either closed (deep breaths, they’re not closed), or you’re just an extremely lucky person. Like running-into-Michael-B-Jordan-in-a-coffee-shop kind of lucky. Because we’ve never got bubble tea here without at least a few minutes’ wait. The important thing you need to know is that it’s always worth that wait. The tea is brewed to order, and they have flavour mixes like passion fruit green tea with coconut jelly and pearls, as well as Japanese red bean matcha. We love the taste of the fresh tea so we like to keep it simple with our go-to order of warm pearl milk tea, or the mango green tea with tapioca.
This bubble tea franchise has locations across four different continents, and although we can’t speak for all of them, we can speak for this New Malden location when we say that it’s serious about bubble tea. They don’t faff about with any fruit boba. Instead they focus on tapioca, golden pearls, and a selection of other toppings like red beans and grass jelly. The intensity of the tea can be quite strong with some of the oolong and black tea bases, so if you want a lighter tea, go with mango green tea or the brown sugar pearl milk.
Bubbleology
Before we get into this, we need to have a moment of silence for the closure of the Oxford Circus Topshop. It’s where we, and countless others we’re sure, first tried Bubbleology. But it’s OK, because their Soho spot is still up and running. They’ve got milk teas, fruit teas, and specials including a Peachberry that we drank more than water at one point in our lives. You can mix any fruit flavours, and as well as the aforementioned peachberry (white peach and raspberry), our go-to order is a mango and passion fruit fruit tea with tapioca and lychee boba. They also sell jars of fruit boba.
Min Tea 抿茶
How does cheesy strawberry sound? Not that great. Unless you’re at this little cafe on Newport Court, which serves freshly brewed tea with classic flavours like passion fruit green tea, and brown sugar milk tea, as well as a selection of cheesy milk teas which you can’t find everywhere. The cheesy drinks are tea, topped with a foamy layer of milk and cream cheese sprinkled with salt, and Min Tea does it well. The cheesy milk tea with Oreo bits is our drink of choice, but if you’re not still not on board with cheese in your drink, then the brown sugar milk tea is also a great option.
Bubble Magik
The same way people say it’s important to have friends in high places, we think it’s important to have bubble tea in all places. And this is where we like to go when we’re around Ealing. This cupboard-sized spot on Ealing Broadway doesn’t use basic human hands to shake their drinks. No. Instead they put them in a ‘shaker’ machine for ultimate bubbliness. And you know what? The tea tastes great, so we’re OK with it. We prefer the fruit teas, so if you’re unsure of what to order, go with a mango or a peach, or a fun mix like lychee and passion fruit.
Yunique Tea
This tiny bubble tea spot on Little Newport Street is probably the best place to get an Oreo milk tea in the area. Trust us, we’ve tried all six million of them. With its lengthy lists of milk and fruit teas, there’s something here for everyone. We’re very into their passion fruit tea and watermelon tea with lychee, and if you’re laying off the caffeine, their brown sugar bubble fresh milk is the one to go for. Don’t forget to get a loyalty card when you’re there. You’ll be back.
