Recently, two friends, independent of each other, informed me they had never had bubble tea. I don’t drink it often but do enjoy it occasionally. I began my personal quest to identify all the places you can get bubble tea in Bellingham under the guise of introducing the beverage to first-timers. In the course of writing this article I discovered at least nine places in Bellingham that prepare and serve this delicious treat. Let’s cut to the chase — they were all delicious. Following are my experiences at a few of them.
If you’re unfamiliar, bubble tea is a tea-based drink created in Taiwan in the early 1980s. It often includes boba or tapioca pearls in the bottom of the glass, which are slurped up through an oversized straw. Many people use the terms “bubble tea” and “boba” interchangeably, referring to the same drink.
Usually served cold, it can also be enjoyed in a warm tea. Bubble tea is a sweet beverage made with a base of either milk, dairy-free milk alternative, or fruit, and is usually served with a generous portion of tapioca pearls, which look like black bubbles. There are created to contrast with the color of the tea. (Some stores charge an additional fee to add the pearls.)
The chewy pearls are made from tapioca starch. They are small and unflavored, mixed, rolled, and then cooked separately from the tea. Most of the stores get their pearls pre-rolled and cook a “fresh” batch every few hours in a brown sugary syrup. If you are a do-it-yourself kind of person, I found this video detailing how to make boba.
An added bonus? Since no gelatin is used in the process of making the pearls, they are vegan. Some people describe the texture of the pearls as resembling jelly and gummy bears. There are personal preferences for the prepared pearls; some people like them firm, others chewy or soft. (I lean more towards sweetened, with chewy texture.) Other options to add to the boba tea include bursting boba, which is a fruit juice-filled gelatin ball, and fruit flavored jellies.
The cost of prepared bubble tea varies from store to store. Some include boba pearls in the base price, others charge extra. Every vendor I visited charged extra for jellies, additional tea flavors, and fruit. I paid as little as $6 and as much as $11 for a green tea boba with milk and pearls from the different vendors. Typically, the more expensive places had a base charge for the milk/blended fruit concoction, and then tacked on additional costs for everything, including dairy alternatives (coconut milk, soy, almond milk).
Soy House
Full disclosure, this is my favorite place to get bubble tea. Over lunch one day, my first-timer friend Anne’s review was that “the bubbles are delicious. I was afraid they’d be slimy. Blended is better, with coconut milk, of course.”
www.soyhouserestaurant.com
400 West Holly Street
360.393.4857
Bellis Boba Company
My first-timer friend Heidi joined me. We were surprised to learn that the day we went was this store’s eleventh day in business, and their service was faster than most. They have lots of different flavors, (70% natural flavoring) with both traditional tapioca pearls, as well as 30 options of fruit jellies and bursting boba, fruit juice in a thin gelatin. Their additional options included protein powder or vanilla ice cream for their smoothies.
The manager suggested a Taro milk tea with coconut, although advised this would be a lot of calories. “It’s like the milk left over in your sweet cereal bowl.” Theirs, admittedly, tasted more like a dessert. Heidi dubbed it “really good.” Mine was very sweet. I still prefer the chewy pearls over the bursting boba, but they were good.
www.facebook.com/bellisboba
Bellis Fair Mall
850.449.0203
Bliss Tea
Bliss Tea was the place friends in-the-know told me made “the best” bubble tea. In fact, most of the people I know who know boba, know Bliss Tea. There were many more flavors and options than most of the other stores, and it was equally as easy to make it the most expensive with all of the optional additions.
www.instagram.com/blisstea44
2426 James Street
Muto Ramen & Sushi
Muto doesn’t have a large selection of options for their bubble tea, but what they do have is delightful. The three on their menu were Thai tea, Milk tea or Taro. The Thai tea was supposed to be the least sweet of the three, which I thought, after drinking, was still pretty tasty.
www.mutoramen.com
105 East Chestnut
360.647.3530
The Spice Hut
I was surprised to learn that Spice Hut sells bubble teas. I was told I could choose from just about any of the teas in their store for my base flavor — that’s a lot of choices. I went with their standard fare, and it was scrumptious. Spice Hut’s website boasts that it makes each batch of tapioca fresh daily.
This store was the furthest from my home, but the least expensive of my testing, so it balanced out with the gas I had to use to get there.
I hope to try the bubble tea from the other stores once I lose the five pounds I gained from researching and data gathering for this round-up.
www.thespicehut.com
131 W. Kellogg
360.671.2800
