MIAGuide
The Best Boba Shops In Miami
photo credit: CLEVELAND JENNINGS / @EATTHECANVASLLC
We can’t think of a better cold drink than boba tea for a city with 70% humidity and year-round summer. But weather aside, we just love everything about boba—the big-ass straws, the cathartic stabbing of the lid, the suspense of how many tapioca pearls you’ll get with the next sip. The places on this guide let you adjust the size of those tapioca pearls, pick your preferred sweetness level, and encourage you to add all manner of creams and jellies. These things are more customizable than your cousin's Jeep Wrangler—and more useful than the snorkel attached to it. Here are our favorite boba spots in Miami.
THE SPOTS
photo credit: CLEVELAND JENNINGS / @EATTHECANVASLLC
Our favorite boba spot in Miami is hidden in the back of an Asian market on Calle Ocho. Hotline Boba has one of the most diverse drink menus in town—with options that include fruit tea, milk tea, Korean fruit milk, horchata, Vietnamese coffee, and blended milkshakes—with a generous foundation of over a dozen boba options. The quality is as impressive as the quantity, and you can browse the excellently curated Asian-Mart while you wait for your drink. They also have a d.i.y. instant ramen bar and a small back patio where you can sit down to eat.
photo credit: Cleveland Jennings
Ohla's tea options are not only delicious, but highly customizable. You can choose the exact percentage of sweetness for each drink, whether you want it topped with cheese foam (you do), and the boba choices are plentiful. This place makes one of our absolute favorite taro milk teas, if that's what you're into. And they have food too—a small but tasty menu of hot dogs, dumplings, and egg waffles with ice cream. It's quiet, relaxing, and a good coffee shop alternative to bring your laptop and get some work done.
The skylight alone is a reason to come here. It covers the length of this South Miami boba shop and makes you feel like a succulent in a terrarium. But a better reason to stop by is the tiny boba. They offer pea-sized boba, which are easier to chew and don't shoot up your straw like this week’s paycheck in a bank suction tube—rather, they glide up smoothly with every sip. You can also add pudding, ice cream, jelly, and pick your level of sweetness. We like honey milk tea with 75% sweetness and (of course) tiny boba. There’s a South Beach location too, even though it lacks an impressive skylight.
There aren’t really any seats inside this little Brickell spot. But the milk teas are great, and there’s a display case full of housemade cakes you can bring home. You can smell their delicious roasted caramel tea, one of their signature drinks, as soon as you step foot inside. If you’re worried about that being too sweet, don’t. This is one of the spots that let you customize the percentage of your preferred sweetness. Even the swiss roll cakes in that display case are nice and balanced.
photo credit: Tasty Planet
Mi Tea actually originated in Hangzhou, China, and it’s a great place for people who take their tea very seriously. But even if you couldn't tell a tea leaf from a blade of grass, you will easily find something delicious. Especially if you order the brown sugar bubble milk with taro. Mi Tea is also connected to iFresh, a huge Asian supermarket, and Land N Sea, one of our favorite spots for Chinese barbecue. So you can make an afternoon out of a trip here.
The perk of going to North Beach's Million Delights is that—if you get there before they sell out—you can pair your boba with a slice of bouncy Japanese cheesecake. But even if they have tragically run out, you can expect a really solid boba experience. They don’t have as many options as some other shops—but the fruit teas are tasty (and not sickeningly sweet), and the taro milk tea is a great thing to pick up on your way to the very close beach.
photo credit: Ryan Pfeffer
There's a lot going on at Snow Kool, a little shop in a Doral strip mall. They make excellent shaved ice, rolled ice cream, and have a menu of Chinese noodle dishes, pork roujiamo, and more savory items worth your attention. But you can just come here for boba. It's not the biggest selection in town, but they have enough options to make even picky tea people happy. You can also top their taro shaved ice with a few different kinds of popping boba, if you’re feeling indecisive and can’t decide between boba tea or shaved ice.
This shop on Sunset Drive sells everything from mango milk tea to chocolate milk tea. But our favorite order here is the brown sugar milk tea. They drizzle the inside of a cup with brown sugar syrup and fill it with black tea and milk. Then they drop so many boba pearls into the cup, it looks like a ball pit inside a lava lamp, but it tastes like sticky caramel. While you’re there, get an Oreo cake cup or a Taiwanese sausage that’s a little sweet and has a nice snap to every bite.
There’s a little plaza of food trucks in the Design District, next to that Dr. Seuss-looking parking garage. In it, you’ll find Yoso Boba, a sibling to the sushi truck next door. It's a tiny operation, so don't expect tons of options. But we’ve liked all the fruit and milk teas we’ve had here. Our favorite is the brown sugar taro milk, which is just what you want to be sipping on a sweaty day in the Design District.
This North Miami Beach spot is another place doing that most summer-appropriate combination of shaved ice and boba tea. There are more milk tea options than fruit tea options here. But you can customize your level of sweetness, which kind of milk you want, and pick from a dozen toppings that range from classic boba to lychee popping boba. This place is also close to Oleta State Park, and makes for a great stop after a day of trying not to fall off your paddleboard.
photo credit: Tasty Planet
Not only is this place (formerly known as T-Yummi) home to one of our favorite bánh mí in Miami, but their milk teas are excellent. The signature milk tea is a rich black tea with bits of egg pudding and honey boba (we love it). The little shop is also across from the FIU campus, so come here to study or just play one of the board games with your friends between classes.
The food at Serious Dumplings is just OK, but the boba tea is what motivates us to return to the casual North Miami restaurant. It’s really good, available to-go, and there are tons of options. We like the strawberry milk tea with cheese foam (you can add cheese foam to anything, by the way). There are also tons of iced green tea options with flavors like lychee and passion fruit.
We don’t encounter boba ventanitas very often. But this is Miami (actually Kendall). And Lan Pan-Asian’s boba tea window is the perfect pitstop for Metrorail commuters, but you can also go inside and have a full meal. Just make sure you order a red sea roll if you do. Remember this place the next time you’re rushing to Michaels to buy styrofoam balls for your kid’s solar system project that’s due tomorrow. Order a Thai milk tea with tapioca—it’ll give you the energy of a thousand suns.
