Best Bubble Tea in Calgary: 11 Places to Fill Your BBT Craving
- August 9, 2019
- By Cody Battershill
Where to Get the Best Bubble Tea in Calgary
After drinking bubble tea just once you may find yourself addicted to it. I did, and I immediately began wondering where I could get the best bubble tea in Calgary.
Since then, I have been going from store-to-store around the city in search of that next best bubble tea drink.
While I never found one particular place that stood out from the rest, what I did discover was a collection of excellent bubble tea in Calgary that will soothe your craving like they did mine.
So whether you're trying it for the first time, or are an experienced bubble tea drinker, any one of these places on our list of best bubble tea in Calgary should satisfy.
What’s your favourite place in the city? Let us know below and we’ll add it to our list!
CoCo Fresh Tea & Juice (16th Avenue NE)
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- Address – 213 16th Avenue NE
- Phone Number – 403-474-4898
- Website – CoCo Fresh Tea & Juice – Facebook
Found on 16th Avenue between Centre Street and Edmonton Trail NE, CoCo opened in the base of the newly built rental tower called Marquee on 16th about a year ago and has been doing well ever since.
Inside you’ll find a contemporary atmosphere with lots of long table seating like you’d find at a pub, making it an excellent place to sit down and enjoy a chat with some friends.
We absolutely love the roasted milk tea with grass jelly as well as the handful of other drinks we’ve had, making CoCo for sure home to some of the best bubble tea in Calgary.
This place has an extensive menu that will keep you coming back for more. Just remember this place doesn’t do food.
A new CoCo just opened in Harvest Hills in early August of 2019. Now serving yummy drinks closer to home those who live in the north!
Yummy Q (Kensington)
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- Address - #2, 338 10th Street NW
- Phone Number – 403-245-6778
- Website – yummy-q.com
Yummy Q is a recently opened bubble tea shop in Calgary in the Kensington area that has been met with positive reviews!
We loved it, with its extensive drink menu which includes smoothies, fresh fruit slushes, sparkling teas, milk teas, and dirty cups (sugar packed).
We also both loved the eclectic sitting room inside Yummy Q, and the fact that they have snacks like my favourite bubble waffles which I personally tried for the first and last time years ago in Vancouver.
If you have a sweet tooth, you’ll enjoy their candy-covered wall; pick and choose from a variety of candies and snacks for just a few bucks each, found in buckets on the wall by the cashier.
But don’t get distracted! This place has some of the best bubble tea in Calgary and should be on your bucket list to visit if you love BBT like we do!
Hi-Tea (Chinatown)
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- Address – 312 Centre Street
- Phone Number – 587-717-6688
- Website – hiteacalgary.com
Located inside Dragon City Mall on Centre Street, Hi-Tea is the perfect place to grab a bubble tea while catching the bus at the bus on Centre Street and 3rd Avenue.
It’s also a great place for milk tea, slushes, coffee, and even has snacks – our favourites include the popcorn chicken, egg waffle and dumplings.
Hi-Tea’s several different kinds of powdered bubble teas can also be ordered to be made with real fruit. Just be prepared to pay .70 cents more (totally worth it!).
We also love the daily specials. On Saturday they have a combo with popcorn chicken and your choice of Taiwan style milk tea, oolong milk tea or jasmine milk tea for just $10!
Chatime
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- Multiple locations
- Website – Chatime – Doordash
We usually try to stay away from franchise chains, but Chatime has earned all the right in the world to be on our list of best bubble tea in Calgary.
We’ve been to three of the four locations in Brentwood, Evanston, Chinatown and Deerfoot City. They all serve one of the best best roasted milk teas you’ll find in the city. That’s the usual order, but when it’s not roasted milk tea, Chatime’s extensive menu has your bases covered.
Choose from a wide selection of smoothies, juices, fruit teas, milk teas, fresh teas and fresh fruit slushes. They even have some premium salty mousse drinks which are basically bubble tea with mousse on top.
Unfortunately there’s no food at Chatime, so bring a snack or grab something else nearby if you’re hungry!
Happy Cup (Woodbine)
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- Address – #201, 2525 Woodview Drive SW
- Phone Number – 587-897-1125
- Website – Happy Cup – Facebook
Happy Cup has taken the deep southwest by storm with its real fruit smoothies, fresh fruit slushes, milk tea, bubble tea, sherbet and other drool-inducing drinks and desserts.
We absolutely loved the rich flavour and smooth texture of Happy Cup’s bubble tea. The first drink we had was a pineapple mango bubble tea, and it was amazing!
They put a lot of fruit into one cup, and you can taste it. Sometimes at other places you’ll get bubble tea that is watered down and lacks texture. Not at Happy Cup.
While getting there is a bit of a drive (located in Woodbine), enjoying a cup of the best bubble tea in Calgary at Happy Cup is well worth it!
Gong Cha
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- Multiple locations
- Website – gongchacanada.ca
Like Chatime, Gong Cha is another drink franchise in Canada that knows how to do bubble tea right.
If you like milk tea, Gong Cha is a good choice. We prefer our milk tea with half-sugar, and it always has a strong tea taste to it. The same can’t be said for other bubble tea shops in Calgary that water tea taste down with too much milk.
We also like Gong Cha’s unique drinks, like their milk foam black and green teas, or their lemon wintermelon with basil seeds. One of our favourites is the QQ-passionfruit green tea with half lychee and half pearls.
Gong Cha has multiple locations around Calgary – Chinatown, Country Hills and now CrossIron Mills – so you have a few different options to try out this bubble tea in Calgary.
The Alley (Chinatown)
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- Address - #103, 244 Centre Street S
- Phone Number – 587-435-6243
- Website – the-alley.ca
The Alley is an international drink franchise that just opened its doors in Chinatown in late June. If you like drinking bubble tea in Calgary in style, then this is your place to go!
The original founders of the alley happen to be a group of interior designers that wanted to take your drink and chill experience to new heights. You’ll surely notice how decked out the interior feels when stepping inside like we did.
Apart from a posh interior, The Alley also takes its bubble tea connoisseur status to new heights by making its own sugar cane syrup and tapioca balls (which they call Deerioca).
They also use a ton of fruit in each cup. We noticed what looked like a full kiwi going into my Kiwi slush which gave it a rich, fruity taste for one of the best slush bubble teas I’ve ever had.
3Q小館 Taiwanese Bistro (Macleod Trail S)
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- Address – 4323 Macleod Trail SW
- Phone Number – 403-287-8228
- Website – 3Q Taiwanese Bistro – Doordash
It’s always nice to find some of the best bubble tea in Calgary at a place like 3Q which also has full food service – and good food at that!
Serving up Taiwanese-style snack food and meals, 3Q has everything from dumplings and curry fish balls to chicken rice bowls and beef noodle soup.
Grab one of their signature milk teas, iced teas, oriental teas, real fruit slushes, hot teas or perhaps a specialty drink while enjoying the cozy interior.
Our favourite bubble tea at 3Q so far is a coconut / pineapple real fruit slush (you get to choose two flavours!) with pearls.
3Q is easily reached via Macleod Trail between 42nd and 43rd Avenue SW. It sits on the east side of the street so you’ll have to access 3Q heading north or by going behind via 42nd Avenue into the parking lot.
Presotea (17th Avenue SW)
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- Address – 614b 17th Avenue SW
- Phone Number – 403-455-9917
- Website – presotea-ab.ca
Presotea is another franchise that has made it onto our list of best bubble tea in Calgary, not just for its delicious drinks, but also because of its bumpin’ atmosphere!
Found on 17th Avenue just west of 4th Street SW, Presotea is always teeming with life. It’s a great spot to perch up and tackle a group project together, or alternatively just have some fun with some friends on the weekend.
This bubble tea shop in Calgary is another that does roasted milk tea really well. We get ours half sweet, and the tea taste is crisp and not milked down.
Both Presotea and Bubblemania are two shops with the longest hours on weekends. You can grab your favourite bubble tea all the way until 11pm on weekends!
Bubblemania Café (16th Avenue NE)
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- Address – 455 16th Avenue NE
- Phone Number – 403-277-9398
- Website – Bubblemania Café – Facebook
Bubblemania Café is a staple in our community not only for bubble tea, but also for wing specials every day of the week - and of course social life.
As one of the oldest bubble tea shops in Calgary, Bubblemania is almost always packed to the brim with eager customers.
The menu features a mix of western and Asian-style appetizers, and there’s daily specials to boot. It’s wings’ night every night at Bubbles, with 43 cent wings Monday to Thursday and 63 cent wings on weekends.
Perhaps one of the best parts is that Bubblemania is open until all hours of the night – 12pm on weekdays and 2am on weekends – making it the perfect spot to hang with your friends.
Try Again Beverage House (Chinatown)
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- Address – 111 3rd Avenue SE
- Phone Number – 403-234-0666
- Website – Try Again Beverage House – Yelp
Hidden on 3rd Avenue SE beside the HSBC Bank in Chinatown, Try Again serves up delicious powdered and fresh fruit bubble tea’s to-go for a great price.
For around $5.00 you’ll get one of their tasty drinks. But the hard part isn’t the price, it’s choosing what type of drink you want!
Try Again has over 100 flavours, or thousands I should say if you factor in the different types of cookie crumbs, jelly, pearls and coconut flakes you can add to your drink.
I highly recommend, well, any flavour to be honest. Check out Try Again’s best bubble tea in Calgary the next time you’re in Chinatown! It’s so good, we think you’ll be trying it again soon!
I Love Bubble Tea!
Don’t you? Drop us a line below and let us know about more of the best bubble tea shops in Calgary. We will do our absolute best to add them to the list!
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