If there is one category where Richmond outguns every other city in the region, it is this one. Shops cluster three and four to a block along No. 3 Road, fill the concourses of Aberdeen Centre, Yaohan and Parker Place, and reach out into Ironwood, Blundell and the Steveston Highway plazas. Taiwanese chains sit beside single-location shops, and the queue outside a new opening is a reliable local landmark.
Sugar levels, ice levels and topping choices are the whole point, and most shops post them. Many stay open to eleven or later, which makes this the default after-dinner stop for a large part of the city. Each listing carries hours, address and the neighbourhood it belongs to.
A newer Yaohan Centre shop that steams its own taro and ube in house instead of reaching for powder, which shows up clearly in the texture of the milk lattes. Fruit teas and matcha round out a short menu. Find it on the No. 3 Road frontage.
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An Aberdeen Square shop steps from the SkyTrain doing dessert-like drinks: taro and purple sweet potato milk, oreo slush with cheese foam, salted cream toppings. More indulgent than most of the strip, and the portions are generous.
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An unusual crossover at No. 3 and Cook: fruit-forward bubble tea on one side, French-style low-sugar cakes on the other. Mango pomelo sago and passion fruit teas get ordered most, and the cake boxes make it a gift stop as well.
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An Aberdeen-area shop that stays open close to midnight, which is why it turns up on every late-night Richmond boba list. Fruit teas and milk teas with the usual topping range, ordered from a small counter rather than a sit-down room.
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A family-run stall in the Richmond Public Market food court that has been pouring milk tea for more than twenty years, long before the Golden Village boba boom. Also does fresh fruit drinks and Taiwanese wheel cakes. Cheap and unpretentious.
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An independent Golden Village shop that pairs its bubble tea with Hong Kong egg waffles and ice cream, so most orders leave with a drink in one hand and a waffle in the other. Afternoon and evening hours only, running later on weekends.
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A long-standing Golden Village Taiwanese tea house that is as much a restaurant as a boba shop, serving rice plates and snacks until late. Handy when half your group wants dinner and the other half only wants a milk tea.
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Related categories
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From the blog
Guides and roundups written for Richmond, with the businesses linked inline.
Nothing on Alexandra Road is a hidden gem. It is just in a strip mall with bad signage and no patio, which is why visitors never find it. Here is how I actually use Richmond's plazas and food courts, which specialists are worth the drive, and when not to bother.
The West Dyke Trail is about five and a half kilometres of flat gravel between Terra Nova Rural Park and Garry Point, and I ride it most mornings. Here is what is actually at the north end, which way to walk so the wind is on your side, and why winter is the better season for it.
I live four blocks off Moncton Street, so this is the Steveston I actually use: where to park before the Bayview lots fill, how to buy fish straight off the boats at the wharf, the honest answer to the Pajo's versus Dave's question, and why the history here is not decoration.
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