Frankly is gone — and Milan’s bubble tea has never been better.
Bubble tea — boba, if you grew up saying it that way — is the Taiwanese drink that quietly conquered the planet starting in the 1980s. The formula is simple enough: green or black tea, milk or fruit, sugar to taste. The whole thing lives or dies on the pearls — those black tapioca spheres with the chewy, slightly resistant bite the Taiwanese call QQ. Get the pearls wrong and it’s just sweet tea. Get them right and you understand why people queue.
Milan has taken the drink seriously. When Frankly, the big Italo-Chinese chain, closed all six of its locations earlier this year (a genuine loss), it was tempting to read it as the beginning of the end for boba in the city. It was the opposite. The gap filled almost immediately — partly with homegrown shops, partly with heavyweight chains flying in straight from Taiwan and mainland China, recipes intact. Milan didn’t lose its bubble tea. It traded up.
Here’s where to drink it.
Laankee Hong Kong Milk Tea
Via Paolo Sarpi 2, Milano — Zona Sarpi
Google Maps · Instagram: @laankee_bubbletea
Second location: Via Aristotile Fioravanti 19, a Hong Kong-style café — Sarpi
Laankee started small in the side streets of Sarpi and earned its way to a corner-front spot on the main drag. The specialty is Hong Kong–style milk tea — the strong, slightly bitter, evaporated-milk kind that traces back to the city’s cha chaan teng diners, engineered to cut through a heavy lunch. Order it, but don’t stop there: the bubble waffles (egg waffles, gai daan jai) are the real reason to sit down. Milk tea and a warm egg waffle is Hong Kong afternoon tea in its purest, most portable form.
The Alley
Via Paolo Sarpi 6, Milano — Zona Sarpi
Google Maps · Instagram: @thealley.italy
Second location: Via Torino 49 — Duomo
A Taiwanese institution, founded in 2013 and now past 440 stores worldwide, known for its hand-brewed brown sugar “Deerioca” pearls and a serious fruit-tea lineup. In Milan they run two locations: the original in Chinatown and a newer, design-forward space on Via Torino, steps from the Duomo. If you want to know what the global bubble-tea standard tastes like before the copies got to it, start here.
CoCo Bubble Tea
Via Paolo Sarpi 10, Milano — Zona Sarpi
Google Maps · Website: coco-tea.com
Founded in Taiwan in 1997, CoCo is one of the originals that turned boba into a global format — over 5,000 stores and counting. The move here is the 3 Brothers Milk Tea: milk tea loaded with three toppings, tapioca pearls, pudding and grass jelly, which is roughly as much texture as one cup can legally hold. Watch for the seasonal releases too; they’re usually limited-run and built to be photographed.
Mocano – Fruit & Bubble Tea
Via Paolo Sarpi 17, Milano — Zona Sarpi
Google Maps · Website: mocanobubbletea.it
Second location: Corso Buenos Aires 1, Porta Venezia
Mocano leans on fresh fruit teas rather than the heavier milk-tea end, and it has the one thing almost no boba shop in Milan offers: room. Three floors and actual seating, which turns a takeaway drink into somewhere to sit for an hour. The rare bubble tea spot you go to rather than walk past.
Chabaidao (ChaPanda)
Via Paolo Sarpi 13, Milano — Zona Sarpi
Google Maps · Website: chabaidao.com
Known internationally as ChaPanda, this is one of mainland China’s top-tier chains — founded in Chengdu in 2008 and now past 8,000 stores, a scale that makes most Western chains look like pop-ups. Its Milan arrival landed instantly with the city’s Chinese student crowd, who tend to be the most exacting audience a bubble tea shop can face. When they show up, it means the recipe survived the trip.
QQTea Taiwan
Via Paolo Sarpi 47, Milano — Zona Sarpi
Google Maps · Instagram: @qqtea_taiwan
Second location: Porta Venezia
A Milanese staple that locals defend with real loyalty, with a second outpost in Porta Venezia. The name is the giveaway: QQ is the Taiwanese term for that bouncy, springy, perfectly-cooked pearl texture — the exact thing every shop on this list is chasing. Here it’s the whole point, and it delivers.
Arteasg (Singapore)
Via Paolo Sarpi 41, Milano — Sarpi
Google Maps · Instagram: @arteasg_italia
Second location: Corso Buenos Aires 75 — Loreto
The only bubble tea on this list with a Singapore passport. Arteasg (ART + TEA + SG) opened its flagship at VivoCity in 2017, with roots in Changsha, and now has two Milan addresses: one on Sarpi and one on Corso Buenos Aires, up towards Loreto. The brand claims three inventions: avocado mousse, biscuit-infused tea and organic black sugar pearl milk. You’ll spot it by its signature blue. Both shops stay open until 10pm.
PUCATÈ
Via Felice Casati 23, Milano — Porta Venezia
Google Maps
Small, no-frills and run by a Taiwanese owner: for many regulars it’s the closest thing in Milan to a Taipei bubble tea. The stars are the Taiwanese fruit teas (passion fruit green tea gets the most mentions) and the taro milk tea, but come for the sweets too: red bean imagawayaki and mochi. With 4.7 stars from over 300 reviews, it’s one of the best-rated in the city.
Coll Bubble Tea
Corso di Porta Vittoria 58, Milano — Porta Vittoria
Google Maps
Second location: Via Cesare Correnti 28 — Sant’Ambrogio / Carrobbio
Bright, welcoming and fairly priced, Coll is the bubble tea spot for a longer stop: plenty of people come here to study or work on a laptop. The speciality is fresh fruit tea with little added sugar (mango cheese tea is the bestseller), with waffles and donuts on the side. It closes around 8pm, so think afternoon snack rather than after dinner.
Panda Tea
Corso di Porta Ticinese 58, Milano — Ticinese / Navigli
Google Maps
Your stop if you’re near the Navigli. The space is tiny, with a couple of seats at most, so take it to go and walk the corso. For something creamy, order the Special Panda Milk Tea or the black sugar bubble tea; for something fresh, the fruit teas with real fruit pieces like pineapple and passion fruit. The rose tea wins over even people who don’t usually like rose.
SHIKO Bubble Tea 十口奶茶
Via Carlo Imbonati 75, Milano — Dergano
Google Maps
Second location: Via Ruggero Boscovich 23 — near Centrale
The reason to head north. Among Chinese customers, SHIKO’s taro milk tea has a reputation as one of the creamiest in Italy. It’s not just bubble tea either: the menu has takoyaki and a spicy roast duck rice that many order as a combo with their tea. Cosy room, very kind staff, and a second shop near Centrale.
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