Best Bubble Tea in Richmond BC

Richmond has an absurd number of tea shops. I could not name them all and I would not try, because the roster is different every year. A counter opens on Alexandra Road, does well for two summers, and then it is a nail place. So this is not a top ten of brands. It is how I decide whether a shop is any good before I have finished ordering, where the shops actually are, and the handful of sit-down rooms I keep returning to.

How I judge a tea counter

Tea first. A good shop brews in batches and dumps what it has not sold, and you can taste that. There is real astringency at the back of it, something faintly bitter underneath the sugar. A shop working from powder and covering the difference with syrup tastes flat and slightly chalky no matter what you order.

Then the pearls. Tapioca should be warm, chewy the whole way through, and a little sweet on its own. Cold in the middle or gritty at the centre means it has been sitting in the pot too long. This is the fastest way to sort Richmond's tea shops and it costs you nothing but the first sip.

Then the milk. If it is powdered creamer you will know, because the drink coats your mouth and stays there. Some shops will make it with fresh milk if you ask, and the ones that will are usually the ones worth going back to.

Last, whether the sugar setting means anything. Ask for thirty per cent and see whether you get thirty per cent. A shop that pours everything full sweet regardless is a shop hiding its tea.

How to order

Sugar level and ice level are separate choices. I take most milk teas at thirty per cent sugar with less ice and I have never once wished for more of either. Fruit teas can carry a bit more sugar because the fruit is sour. And if you want the pearls at their best, drink it there rather than carrying it around for twenty minutes, because tapioca firms up and goes chalky as it cools.

Cheese foam drinks are meant to be drunk from the rim, not through the straw. Take the lid off. That salted foam sitting on top is the entire point, and the number of people politely sucking it up through a straw makes me want to intervene at other tables.

If you are ordering for a group, have the whole order ready and say it in one go. The counters at Aberdeen and along Alexandra Road move quickly, and a wobbling order holds up everyone behind you.

Where the shops actually are

Three clusters carry most of it. Alexandra Road between Garden City and No. 3 Road has the highest density in the city, and those shops stay open late because the hot pot restaurants keep them company. The malls hold another set: Aberdeen Centre, Parker Place and Lansdowne, plus Continental Centre over on Sexsmith. Then the No. 3 Road corridor itself, which is the easy one if you are on the Canada Line, since Aberdeen, Lansdowne and Brighouse stations all put you a couple of minutes from a counter.

Steveston, where I live, has almost none. That is a genuine gap in my neighbourhood and I have made peace with it. On my side of the city this errand ends in gelato instead.

The places I actually sit down

Pearl Castle Cafe

Continental Centre, off Sexsmith. This is where I send somebody who has not done this before, because it works as both a drink and a meal. A long list of teas, a menu of rice plates and noodles and popcorn chicken, and a room you can sit in for an hour without anybody pushing you out. It has been my default after a film for years.

Sweet Memory Restaurant

Leslie Road, in West Cambie. Taiwanese street snacks with milk tea and shaved ice, in a room done up like an older Taiwan. Come for the food and let the drink be part of it. Popcorn chicken and an oyster omelette, then something cold.

Memory Corner Restaurant

Garden City Road. Braised pork rice and beef noodle soup with tea alongside. Given the choice between a takeout cup on the walk back to the car and twenty minutes sitting down with a proper plate of food, I would rather sit.

Snowy Village Dessert Cafe

Alexandra Road. Korean shaved snow in bowls built for three or four people to share, plus taiyaki and soft serve on the side. Not strictly tea, but this is where a group ends up after hot pot, and the drinks list does the job.

Little Pisces

Also Alexandra Road. Soft serve in a fish-shaped waffle cone with toppings. I am not going to pretend it is sophisticated, and I have ended up there later in the evening than I meant to more than once.

Matcha Café Maiko

Saba Road. If what you want is tea flavour rather than sweetness, this is the more honest room. Matcha graded by intensity, served as soft serve, floats and shaved ice. Order the strongest grade they will sell you. The mild end tastes like sugar with a green tint.

Daydreamers by Cafe 33

Anderson Road, in City Centre. Small and quieter, gelato alongside matcha lattes and Vietnamese coffee. Useful on a Saturday when the Alexandra Road dessert shops are three deep at the counter and you want to hear yourself think.

Sweet Surrender Gelato

No. 1 Road in Steveston, and not a tea shop at all. They make a Hong Kong milk tea gelato, and on my side of the city it is the closest thing to a proper milk tea. Take it out toward the water.

Why I will not rank the chains

Two locations of the same brand in Richmond can be noticeably different, because whoever is cooking the pearls that afternoon matters more than the logo on the cup. I have had a very good drink and a poor one from the same brand a kilometre apart. So judge the counter in front of you. If the pearls are right and the tea tastes like tea, the sign does not matter, and if they are not, no amount of brand loyalty is going to fix it.

Practical bits

Nearly all of them take card. Seating is limited almost everywhere except the sit-down cafes above, so if the plan involves a drink and a laptop, choose a room and not a takeout window. Late hours are largely an Alexandra Road thing, and worth knowing about if you eat dinner late. If you are driving over on a weekend evening, park in a plaza lot and walk the block instead of circling for a space directly in front of the shop you picked. It is not that long a block.

One last thing. The shops that are good are quietly proud of their tea and will tell you what they are brewing if you ask. The ones that cannot answer the question are telling you something as well.