Bubble tea, also known as boba, has seen a sharp rise in popularity globally in recent years. Even just as recently as 5 years ago, it was extremely hard to find shops in Tokyo that served good bubble tea, which is locally known as tapioca tea (タピオカティー). Trust me, I spent my teenage years drinking bubble tea in Singapore. I absolutely love it and I was devastated at the lack of options when I first moved to Japan.
But not anymore.
The current craze has led to a surge in the number of tea shops, with a succession of famous Taiwanese chains opening branches throughout Japan seeking to capitalise on the soaring popularity of bubble tea. It has even led to the creation of new Japanese words such as tapiru (to drink a tapioca beverage) and tapikatsu (searching for tapioca drinks).
We decided to pick 4 popular bubble tea shops in Shibuya and do a simple blind bubble tea taste test, which you can check out in our video below!
These are the 4 shops we picked:
