As the end of the school year approaches, Cal High students will be drinking and enjoying quali-tea boba to cool down from the California summer heat. 

With the boba bombardment hitting Contra Costa in the past three years, many wonder what boba shop is the best in the area? 

Here at The Californian, a team of editors answer that same question by reviewing six popular tea stops nearby San Ramon. These shops are listed in order of our least favorites to our top choice.

Westea

Located in Pleasanton, Westea has a comfortable atmosphere and one of the quickest customer services out of the six tea shops. 

Westea is an independent tea house that opened in 2016 and is most famous for its mascots: Hunter, Monster and Professor, three cute little white terriers. 

Unfortunately, it seems that the tea loving doggies do not make many appearances at Westea.

The tea itself was pretty good, but some of them had a strange aftertaste, especially the coffee milk tea that reminded us of canned coffee. If we had to recommend a tea, taro milk tea would be our first choice. 

As for the boba itself, we thought that it was pretty standard. It had a normal texture, and was not too sweet. Bonus points to Westea for not using so much boba that it overwhelmed the drink. 

While this place had good milk tea and tasty boba, the store had small and clustered seating and very minimal food.

iTea

Located on San Ramon Valley Boulevard in the Lucky shopping center, iTea offers an expansive beverage and food menu. 

iTea’s drinks are rather rich and after a while seem to feel dense. The preparation for drinks and meals also takes some time. 

But if we had to recommend a drink to get, it would be the Black Tea Oreo Creamy. 

iTea also had a clean-cut look with lime walls and simple white tables. There’s also a few cute pictures with sayings on the walls and big pendant lamps hanging from the ceiling. 

When iTea is not playing frantic trap music, the store has a content atmosphere that is calming for busy loads of customers. 

Overall, iTea has the best food quality and selection out of all the tea houses with a diverse array of delicious meals to choose from. 

Despite this, iTea falls flat on their quality of drinks, which doesn’t necessarily stand up to other tea-houses nearby. 

T4

Located on Alcosta near Walmart, T4 is another boba shop that has more of a clean-cut interior than a cozy one. 

The store had white and teal walls, with white tables and chairs. They often play the latest Kpop, and have everything from “Supernatural” to “Teen Titans Go” on their TV. 

Since part of their kitchen is surrounded by glass, you can watch your tea being made, which is always a fun way to pass the time. While T4 has friendly service and is generally speedy when preparing their drinks, service takes a lot longer when you order food. 

Their food is worth the wait.  T4’s tea is very smooth and fresh, and has a delicious delicious taste, which makes it very memorable. T4 has a wonderful variety of milk teas and fruit teas as well. 

Tea Factory 

Located at Alcosta Boulevard and San Ramon Valley Boulevard along I-680, Tea Factory has a relaxing atmosphere and is a great place to hang out with friends. 

Tea Factory had our overall favorite vibe. It was content, they had Jenga, and played fairly slow-tempoed music. Their brick walls were adorned with graffiti-style paintings of boba and landmarks, travel themed pictures and license plates from popular tourist spots.

We were the only people in the shop, and as a result, the two women working there retreated into the back kitchen after we received our orders. This made it difficult if we wanted to order food or another drink later. 

They did not have bad customer service, but the cashier did not clarify if there was a range of sweetness to the drinks we ordered.

Unlike other tea houses, it does not seem that Tea Factory has a standard sweetness level, and this didn’t become apparent until after our drinks were ordered.

Besides the difficulty of ordering our tea, Tea Factory had very delicious drinks that tasted authentic, natural, and fresh. 

Despite the hiccup of customer service, we thoroughly enjoyed our visit at Tea Factory especially. 

Cafe Tapioca

Located on Regional Street off Dublin Boulevard in Dublin, Cafe Tapioca has been in business since 2003. 

This tea house not only sells beverages but also offers ice cream, snacks, candies, keychains and other knick knacks. 

Cafe Tapioca has a very cozy environment, a delightful variety of milk teas, and offers free iced water in back of the store. (It even has little lemons in it, which is very fancy). 

The shop also had an overall wooden theme, accompanied by lots of plants, and a large TV that was always playing Kpop music videos. The shop also had a couple board games. 

Along with tea, Cafe Tapioca offered ice cream and other foods like fries, butterfly shrimp, and popcorn chicken. While Cafe Tapioca has amazing tasting tea, it would not be wise to visit with a large group during rush hour however as they have difficulty managing rush hour. 

Cafe Tapioca has reasonable prices, a great store atmosphere, yummy milk tea, well cooked boba and is the best out of all of the boba tea houses. 

None of the following stores were terrible or dissatisfying which made our experience fun and food poisoning free. 

We recommend if one has the chance that they try all of the following tea houses listed for some delicious treats.