At every place we went across the world, we searched for bubble tea. Mainly Gong Cha, the boba brand I and Z get at home, and we were surprisingly successful in some places. We found Gong Cha in Japan, France, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam and decided to rate each place based on customisation (can you choose ice, sugar level), drink diversity (types, mainly if they have the one we usually get: the peach green tea) and the amount of toppings (types of pearls, bonus points if normal pearls as well as popping pearls and they have different flavours).

The first Gong Cha in our overseas trip was a stop in Japan, which was decent compared to others in hindsight. Multiple types of toppings, not many pearls but the jelly that many Gong Chas around the world loved, and a decent range of drinks. They had the peach alisan tea, which was similar to our favourite drink and not too bad. The fact that we managed to go to multiple different Gong Chas in Japan ought to deserve some bonus points. Or N’s heartwarming first reaction to tapioca pearls 🤢 (they went straight in the bin; quite funny).

Indonesia (surprisingly) had one too. A small shop hidden inside a huge mall, we weren’t expecting much, but honestly this one was almost as good as Japan. They had a range of toppings, just not the ones we prefer. In fact, Z might’ve regretted getting toppings at all if she knew what was to come. Another surprise – we found another in another huge mall, except this bubble tea place was bigger, enough to rank Indonesia above Japan for the addition of our favourite drink to the menu. I think finally seeing ‘sweet’ and ‘ice’ levels was a highlight of that week.

France’s Gong Cha is a small shop in the city of Paris, but is definitely not our worst boba experience. We could get our exact order – the pearls and drinks had range, but the sugar and ice levels were not there this time.

Kuala Lumpur had a great choice of bubble tea as well. Meaning it had the peach green tea (which was all we cared about) and strawberry pearls (our usual choice). The shopping mall it was in flanked our hotel building, so you could say we went back there a few times during our short Malaysian stay.

We then experienced what you could call a Gong Cha drought as we travelled across the UK and most of Europe, as well as some of Southeast Asia. We were finally resurrected in Vietnam, but of course the choice couldn’t beat Australia.

Overall, while there are many options to choose from, the best country for Gong Cha (excluding the countries we haven’t been to) would be Australia (in our humble biased opinion). There’s so much range (and we get the same drink every time) and the place regularly introduces new creative (or questionable) drink styles – like monster energy drink bubble tea. Of the places we’ve been overseas, our favourite was Kuala Lumpur, and Paris was probably the worst just because there weren’t much options and none of us are a fan of tapioca pearls (N’s reaction to drinking one was as if she’d swallowed a slug, and fair because their texture is like that).