Bay Area boba, and an updated Top Boba list

San Jose, Calif. - I have some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that one of my favorite boba spots in the Northern Hemisphere, Verde (the Cupertino location) is closing because their lease has not been renewed. The good news is that their Mountain View location, which I wrote about in detail in the early years of this blog, is still open.

Farewell, Verde. You've been delicious. :(

Some other good news: I've been out of the Bay Area boba loop for awhile now, and found out during a recent trip back that there are a couple new boba hotspots: Tpumps and Cafe LaTTea, both in Cupertino. I didn't get a chance to try either during my too-short trip, but they're definitely on my to-do list for Christmas. I also need to try Boba Guys in SF, which apparently serves boba in mason jars, the receptacle of choice for the hipster generation. They are not the first to do so, though -- back in 2009, I had a memorable coconut milk boba out of a mason jar at Cafe Spot in good ole Alhambra.

Coming soon: an updated list of my top boba places, which I have not revisited since 2008. Actually, very little has changed since then except that Half & Half has been added so...here it is:

Cat's Top Boba (global), in no particular order:
1. Lollicup - Guilin, China
2. Verde - Mountain View, Calif.
3. Waku-Waku Teahouse - Windsor, Ontario
4. Half & Half - multiple locations in Southern Calif., including Rowland Heights and San Gabriel

Cat's second-tier top boba, ie I'd happily hit up these places in the absence of Top Boba places:
1. Little Bean - Rowland Heights, Calif.
2. Guppy Teahouse - multiple locations in Southern Calif.

A boba-filled vacation

My recent trip to LA made me long for simpler times, when I lived in California and could roll out of bed and find good boba anywhere. These days, I roll out of bed...into the boba-less abyss known as DC. Here, efforts to find even passable boba are fruitless. Here, many people don't even know what boba is. Uncivilized.

Anyway, back to happier thoughts. My friend took me to CoCo, which I'd never been to before. It's in the Sawtelle neighborhood of LA, which is one of my favorite places to eat because it has almost all of the things I love: ramen, sushi, izakaya, shaved ice, banh mi and, of course, boba. I could easily spend a week there and be happy eating something different and delicious every meal, then have shaved ice or boba for dessert. Or boba for breakfast. Or as an appetizer...or a nightcap...

Part of CoCo's extensive menu

CoCo is good. It's a pretty standard quality boba place that you'd find in LA and the Bay Area. They have the normal tapioca, plus the pudding and grass jelly options for most drinks. I myself am a boba purist and stick to the bare-bones black milk tea with tapioca for two reasons: 1) Milk tea (either black or green tea) is still my favorite boba base. I've always loved the flavor of a good milk tea, and I prefer it over smoothie-based boba, where the liquid is so icy that it makes the tapioca harden. 2) I think it's important to stay consistent and try the same thing at every boba place, if I am to review it fairly. CoCo's black milk tea with boba is solid -- good tea flavor and good chewy (if a bit soft) tapioca. I really enjoyed it. Plus, it was the first time in six months that I'd had good boba (the last time was when I went home for Christmas and had Verde, one of my favorite boba places in North America), so it was extra tasty.

The real boba high point of my trip, though, was Half & Half, my favorite boba in Southern California. I usually get the iced milk with honey boba, their specialty (this is one of the few exceptions to my milk tea rule, which is really more of a philosophy), but this time I splurged and added pudding too. I was on vacation, after all. Then I went to the park and read, and later that night had great sushi. All in all, it was a fabulous day in which boba was just one of several highlights.

Half & Half, my favorite boba in Southern California -- and one of my top 3 in the Northern Hemisphere

The end of the boba drought

New York, NY - I haven't had good boba since I was in California over Christmas, so when I made a brief trip to NYC for a friend's baby shower, I of course had to indulge in some boba before I returned to DC, the land of no boba. We ducked into Vivi Bubble Tea near Wall Street, where I got the green milk tea. It won't be making my list of Best Boba Ever (btw that list should be updated to include Half & Half) but it's definitely respectable. The tapioca is good and the milk tea isn't too sweet. My favorite part is the scary face they put on the lid, see photo below.

Menu

Buy 5, get 1 free!

The face any sane person would make when returning to the land of no boba (DC).