Percolate has become Instagram feed fodder for its pretty drinks, unexpected culinary combinations, and humorous drink names. The Cardi is made with freshly brewed espresso with pure vanilla, cardamom, and creamy oat milk, while the Figgy Smalls swirls fig puree and Earl Grey tea. The popular Matcha Royale is made with first harvest uji matcha, 100 percent fruit purée, and oat milk. Percolate uses high-quality boba balls and sweetens drinks with raw cane sugar. The Blue Mango drink is a beautifully layered butterfly tea with mango fruit puree, lemongrass, and lychee. Other drinks unique to Percolate include chocolate banana latte with oat milk and a lavender-infused tea with chia seeds.

Latea is one of the few boba shops that make its own boba on the premises multiple times a day. The shop uses the owner’s late grandmother’s homemade boba recipe (she used to sell boba at Taiwanese night markets back in the ‘80s and ‘90s). Latea tries to use organic ingredients whenever possible. The Thai tea, for example, uses natural tea leaves without any orange coloring from preservatives. There are an array of drinks that all use organic tea. The matcha latte with oat milk with longan honey boba is a fan favorite, as are the roasted brown sugar milk and tiramisu milk teas. There are a handful of dairy alternatives available as well. 

Milk+T is a boba shop in Downtown LA that specializes in fusion boba drinks; originally, it operated as a food truck and is known for the real fruit and sugar it uses to make its syrups, its loose leaf teas imported from Taiwan, and its fresh lactose-free milk. It offers a range of creative drinks served in glass bottles meant to be reusable. The Boyfriend is a green milk tea with brown sugar, topped with a scoop of cookies ‘n cream ice cream. Another favorite is the Pink Panda, which pairs strawberry milk with cookies ‘n cream. 

Cha Redefine focuses on brewing traditional teas with local ingredients to create drink and flavor combinations that other boba shops just don’t have. The coffee drinks like latte and cappuccino are made with tea instead of coffee, while the peach chappucino has touches of peach, tea, and an airy layer of cream foam. The Sri Lankan ceylon cha latte blends ceylon black tea, fresh milk, ice cream whipping cream, and honey roasted pecans, then is topped with brown sugar boba. For those that want a dairy-free option, the cloud drink series is made with avocado foam. All the teas are imported from Asia and are paired with fresh fruit and organic fresh whole milk, oat milk, or almond milk (there is no powdered creamer here).

Taiwan’s OneZo is known as the world’s first boba tea franchise to make its boba in-house. Every shop makes its honey, caramel, black sesame, and taro boba in small batches multiple times a day. Drinks in the taro series are made with a blend of taro root, purple yam, and milk, while the tiger series uses brown sugar as the main ingredient.

Bopomofo is best known for its co-owner, YouTube and filmmaker Phil Wang of Wong Fu Productions. The boba shop is popular in the SGV area and known for its unique take on boba drinks, which do not contain any artificial flavors or syrups, fructose, or powdered creamer — just real fruit, pressed juice, loose leaf teas, and fresh milk. The carrot matcha latte mixes matcha with carrot juice. The strawberry corn milk, watermelon oat milk, and strawberry ginger lemonade are other drinks that can’t be found at other shops. Bopomofo uses lactose-free milk, oat, coconut, and almond milk as other non-dairy options.

Half & Half Good Old Time is a part of the Half & Half chain, but is run like an old-school Taiwanese cafe. The drinks, which contain crushed ice and honey boba, are not fancy but rather nostalgic and good. Drinks including toppings and boba are usually under $5.

Ube lovers will love Moo Tea. Its speciality is purple yam fresh milk with boba, made with real purple yam blended into a creamy, starchy, thick consistency. The texture is similar to a smoothie so don’t forget to mix before drinking. Enjoy the drink by itself or topped with cheese foam, pudding, and/or boba. Other specialties include peach tea with yakult foam, made with canned fruit bits, and dalgona coffee milk tea.

Originally from Taichung in Taiwan, the birthplace of boba, Chicha San Chen is the first US branch of the shop. Every drink is freshly brewed to order with a special “Teapresso” machine. Expect to wait anywhere between 20 to 40 minutes for drinks, which can only be ordered online. Drinks are categorized by mousse, cream, fresh milk, condensed milk, latte, honey, fruit sweeteners (mango, passionfruit), or pure tea. 

Some of the most popular drinks are dong ding oolong tea with mousse and boba, cassia black tea with mousse and grass jelly, high mountain pouchong tea, and osmanthus oolong with mango. The focus at Chicha San Chen is the tea, but it also has many popular toppings like Konjac jelly, grass jelly, and cheese foam. The boba is soft, warm, and chewy. Also, the shop uses milk from Taiwan, which is creamier than American milk.

Neighbors is a mom-and-pop tea shop that has classic boba drinks, as well as unconventional options. The smashed avocado and durian smoothie comes with rainbow jelly bits. Additionally, Neighbors is the only tea shop that makes a Thai green tea drink with sea salt that is sweet, creamy, and balanced. The tropical fruit tea is one of the shop’s signature beverages; it comes with an array of fresh fruits and is topped off with aloe vera and chia seeds.

BenGong’s Tea is a Chinese boba shop with more than 700 locations globally. The boba shop specializes in organic teas and is most famous for its Chinese decor. Many of the drinks are unique and cannot be found at other boba shops, with an array that ranges from milk teas, fruit teas, and cheese teas to cheese smoothies. Ben Gong’s also offers tea cube jellies as a topping that can also be paired with boba, cheese foam, coconut jelly, and even a special Tibetan hulless barley with a satisfying chewy bite that’s also known for its antioxidant properties. Other popular drinks include the purple taro cheese slush, Da Hong Pao milk tea, osmanthus rice milk tea, burnt caramel cheese milk tea, and the mango pomelo sago. 

Truedan originally started at the famous Shilin Night Market in Taiwan and now has franchise locations in the U.S. It is famous for its signature brown sugar drink made with fresh milk and brown sugar boba. The brown sugar coating is layered along the bottom of the cup and up and down the sides of the cup. For optimal taste, the drink needs to be mixed until it is blended. There are also variations of the fresh milk series with different toppings like taro and grass jelly. Imbibers can adjust their level of sweetness, ice, and nondairy substitutes.

If you love unique drinks and cats, then 3Catea is a must-try. The entire shop is decorated with cat decor and cat-themed cups. One of the most popular drinks is the avocado mango smoothie made with a jasmine green tea base, fresh avocado, fresh mango, coconut milk, agar boba, and pomelo. There are also other specialties like cheese peach tea, roasted oolong with cheese mousse, rose oolong milk tea, and soybean Dan Cong milk tea, to name a few. 3Catea even has a soybean mousse topping as well as clear agar agar boba, which is a healthier alternative to boba. 

Xing Fu Tang, which translates to “happiness realm” in Mandarin, hails from Taiwan and has shops all over the world. Lines are long, but ordering made-to-order boba is quite the show. The boba is stir fried in brown sugar in a wok in an open kitchen. Staff are constantly rolling out tapioca starch and making boba balls from scratch.

The signature brown sugar boba milk consists of freshly caramelized brown sugar boba made in-house with organic milk, creamy milk foam, and topped with brown sugar that is torched like a creme brulee. Xing Fu Tang serves several other drinks, including dalgona coffee boba milk, strawberry pearl milk tea, grapefruit green tea, rose tea with lime, two kinds of soft serve ice cream, and even a boba milk topped with gold foil.

Taiwan-based Yifang has stores all over the world and is known for using organic sugar, fresh fruits, and tea leaves from Taiwan. The shop’s signature drink is a brown sugar pearl latte, a milky and creamy drink with warm brown sugar boba on the bottom and a brown sugar swirl on top. Yifang’s fruit tea is made with Taiwanese golden pineapple jam, which gives the tea tartness. Yifang’s drinks tend to be on the sweeter side, so make sure to adjust sweetness levels accordingly. 

Shake 17 times. Seventeen is the magic number that Sunright claims patrons should shake its drinks for the perfect blend. Sunright has some of the most unique drinks in the SGV. The shop imports its ingredients from Taiwan, with the exception of matcha powder from Japan. The signature Sunright Fruit Tea is made using high-quality oolong tea that is mixed with fresh-squeezed orange juice, passionfruit, and orange and lemon slices. The milk tea is sweetened with house-made brown sugar, just like in Taiwan. The slightly larger-than-average boba is cooked for 90 minutes in brown sugar to ensure that the boba fully absorbs the flavor.

Every month or so Sunright comes out with new exclusive seasonal flavors that are only available for a limited time. The seasonal grapefruit yakult is a fan favorite with its citrusy blend of freshly squeezed grapefruit juice and yakult yogurt served with grapefruit slices. Another addition, Summer Frostie, is a smoothie made with passionfruit and pineapple jam from Taiwan served with cheese foam and jasmine tea jelly.