This article in NY Times Magazine is an annoying food criticization/intellectualization of one of life's great simple pleasures.
To put a positive note on a snarky intro, I love bubble tea. We at Lunamania like lists and criteria and being opinionated. So here's the Lunamania list of tasty bubble tea. Comments are always welcome!
#1 Wonderful Foods Co. at 2110 Irving b/t 22nd and 23rd is hands down the best boba. As described in the article above, bubbles are all about texture. There's none of that creepy furry fuzz feel. On rare occassions the bubbles have been a tad on the sweet side. Nonetheless, they win first place in Lunamania because they are one of the few places that offer the sugar seizure inducing Pudding Tapioca Bubble Tea. They have over 100 tea, fruit, smoothy, coffee concoctions and you can snack on tea eggs, various beef jerky snacks, an rainbow assortment of bin candy and preserved tasties. Room for improvement = frequent buyer card.
#2 Sweetheart Cafe 319 9th street on Harrison. Oakland Chinatown's teen hang out is appropriately located on the ground floor of the Asian Resource Center building which is home to APEN, Sweat Shop Watch, Asian Immigrant Worker Advocates and Filipinos for Affirmative Action. If they made pudding bubble tea, they would be in a tie with Wonderful Foods. That said, their bubbles are consistent and they have more candy, offer popcorn chicken and something I will dub coconut coffee gel blocks--very tasty. My vote goes to their lychee bubble tea, mocha, and anything you can work the green grass jelly into.
#3 Sweetheart Cafe on Grant at Washington in San Francisco Chinatown. Earlier this month, I noticed a number of people walking around with the trademark Sweetheart cups of deliciousness. I enlisted my co-workers into some sleuthing that lead us to the newbie in town--a mere 2 blocks from our office. Joy. They made some good choices here--namely to at least offer pudding bubble tea. However, the pudding is of the egg heavy variety as opposed to the flan kind. The bubbles were good though. I'll have to go a few more times to check for consistency.
#4 The tea house most commonly known as the one next to the St Alps on 51 Mott Street in NY Chinatown. Unlike the top 3 on this vaunted list, #4 is a sit down affair with appetizers and "ambience"--or at least dim lighting. I stuck to the almond teas here and sitting down opens up the option of warm tea. Their dark teas are good, but relative to the top 3, their fruit and slushy options are quite limited. They do have one of those cool vacuum sealing machines if you order to go.
#5 St Alps in Sunset Park, Brooklyn 58th and Eighth. Like #4, this spot offers seating and a laminated menu and a relatively limited fruit based selection. Consistent bubbles and two blocks from Nonya's--who needs to trek to Manhattan? :)