Seattle’s first bubble tea food truck, the mobile operation is easy to spot with its pastel pink exterior and signature unicorn logo. It’s usually found roaming around Kirkland, Ballard, and Lynnwood and serves up a wide assortment of milk teas, smoothies, and lattes that are as aesthetically pleasing as they are refreshing. Standouts include the ever-so-popular strawberry matcha latte and Dreamy’s yogurt series. Preorder for delivery via the website on Saturdays and Sundays, or for pickup throughout the week.

This small shop in Greenwood offers a variety of bubble tea in addition to its robust selection of gluten-free street food. Its popular “Panda Milk” drink features a cup of milk that is painted with stripes of black sesame syrup, topped off with a cream cheese-based salted milk cap. This incredibly rich and creamy drink delivers strong on the nutty, fragrant notes of black sesame, and pairs well with the shop’s various snacks, such as its sesame scallion noodles and fried chicken skins. Order via the official website for takeout and delivery.

Out of the 20-plus boba shops in the U District, Taiwanese chain Ding Tea stands out for the strong real tea flavors coming through in most of the milk tea drinks. The brown-sugar boba milk tea is perfectly crafted, streaked with black sugar syrup, but it’s hard to miss with this tea shop’s menu.

This hugely popular Taiwanese chain has a branch in the U District, featuring a clean, minimalistic aesthetic and workers dressed in lab coat-esque uniforms. It carries an abundance of floral drinks (like rose milk tea and wintermelon chrysanthemum) all beautifully layered. But the boba (golden honey or brown sugar) are the real stars, thoroughly sweetened on the outside, with QQ, a Taiwanese term denoting a delightfully firm, but still bouncy texture. Available for takeout, delivery, and limited indoor dining.

Starting out as an online catering service, the Fremont restaurant features Taiwanese malatang, but also offers an extensive selection of milk and fruit teas. Diners will find classics like winter melon juice and cheese cream teas, along with rarer items like peach oolong milk tea and Japanese twice-roasted milk tea. Orders for takeout and delivery can be made via the website, and there’s limited indoor dining.

Another Taiwanese franchise with a Seattle outpost, Mr. Wish — in Bellevue and Kirkland — specializes in fresh fruit teas and smoothies. One should also check out the cafe’s black tiger milk, a perfect combination of sweet and creamy that’s made by slow cooking tapioca balls in black sugar, and then topping it off with lactose free milk. Be quick when ordering, though — they go fast. Available for takeout, delivery, and limited indoor dining.

This Uptown/Lower Queen Anne boba shop’s interior has eight different tea bases on the menu, but the Japanese buckwheat milk tea is definitely a must-try. The aromatic, nutty, and slightly savory flavors pair well with perfectly sweetened, honey soaked, tapioca pearls. Cloud smoothies are also fun additions to the menu, layered to look like their namesake. Open for takeout and delivery.

With over 1000s of stores worldwide, Coco is a leading Taiwanese brand in the bubble tea industry, and one that prides itself on quality and consistency. Its milk teas have a well-balanced combination of tea flavor and milkiness; and the boba is always fresh and chewy. The brown sugar pearl latte is another top item, featuring deeply caramelized brown sugar pearls and milk. Open for takeout and delivery.

This Chophouse Row boba shop (with a Redmond outpost) carries a wide assortment of drinks, ranging from milk teas to yogurt smoothies. Its black milk tea sets itself apart from competitors with the usage of orange pekoe leaves, giving the drink a colorful tinge and tangy, bold flavor. The toasts are excellent as well, filled with cheese and boba or taro paste and pork floss. Available for pickup via the website or delivery.

Capitol HIll’s half café/half trendy retail store sells both clothes and boba. It carries Instagram-worthy “bearyaki” ice cream cones topped with Asian soft serve flavors like ube and pandan, and drinks whimsically named after clothing brands and artists, including the Post Melona, reminiscent of the classic Melona ice cream bar. Open for takeout and delivery.

Brown sugar milk tea Instagram sensation Tiger Sugar came to Downtown Seattle in summer 2021 after conquering Los Angeles and New York by a storm in 2019. Tiger Sugar stays fairly focused on its signature brown sugar milk tea drinks, with variations that come with coffee jelly, chocolate malt, and espresso. There are a few non-brown-sugar drink options, though, like mango sago, iced black tea, and iced green tea. It’s a three-minute walk from Pike Place Market.

This popular nternational District shop is a subsidiary of Chun Shui Tang, a Taiwanese teahouse believed by many to be the first creators of boba milk tea. Here, one can find high quality teas and lattes which feature less sweet drinks, which place a heavier emphasis on tea flavor. Along with the standard boba topping, TP also offers QQ noodle, which is a slightly less chewy, noodle shaped version of the more well-known tapioca ball. Available for takeout or delivery.