Best Bubble Tea in Gravesend

Gravesend has four bubble tea spots in 2026 — Shakes (us, family-run since the start), Gong Cha (the global chain that opened May 2025), Boba Town (a local independent at St George's Centre), and Multea Choice Kent (a Taiwanese-style specialist on King Street). All four are highly rated locally. Which one is "best" depends entirely on what you're ordering. Here's a fair, factual guide so you don't have to guess.

We're going to be transparent up front: we run one of these shops, so this is not a neutral review. What we promise instead is fairness — we'll tell you honestly what each of the other three does well, including things they do better than us, and where we think we genuinely stand out. That's a more useful guide than pretending we don't have a horse in the race.

We've left out anything subjective about staff, cleanliness or wait times — those vary day to day, and the right place for that information is each shop's Google reviews, not a comparison piece. What we'll cover is the fixed stuff: range, focus, dietary options, and what each spot is structurally set up to do well.

2025–2026: a sudden boba boom in Gravesend

Bubble tea wasn't really on Gravesend's high street five years ago. By early 2026, four shops are trading. That's not a coincidence — it tracks the wider UK pattern of boba mainstreaming, especially among Gen Z and younger millennials, plus Gravesend's specific demographic profile: a relatively young, diverse town with strong South Asian and Southeast Asian communities, good rail links into central London, and a high street that's been actively rebuilt over the last decade.

What it means in practice for anyone reading this: you've got real choice. The four shops genuinely cover different parts of the bubble tea world. None of them is a copy of the others. Below is what each one does best.

The four shops, fairly compared

Shakes — the widest range under one roof

That's us. We're at 2A Pelham Road, family-run, open noon to ten every day. We started as a milkshake-and-soft-serve shop and grew the boba and smoothie sides as customers asked for them. The result is a menu that goes wider than any of the other three: 20 boba teas (8 milk teas, 6 fruit teas with popping boba, 6 specials), plus 26 milkshakes, 13 smoothies, fresh Belgian waffles, dessert bowls, and a properly extensive vegan range — 53 items across the menu in total.

What we're set up to do well is a single visit covering different tastes — a teenager wanting taro milk tea, a parent wanting a Lotus Biscoff milkshake, a friend on a vegan diet, all served from one till, all blended fresh to order. We back it with prices a touch under most chains and a full vegan-soft-serve milkshake range that's genuinely rare for an independent. Where we'd be honest about not winning is tea purity (more on Gong Cha below) and bubble-tea-only specialism (Boba Town's stock-in-trade).

Gong Cha Gravesend — chain quality, whole-leaf tea

Gong Cha opened on New Road in May 2025 — Kent's first branch of the global Taiwanese chain. They've built their international brand around freshly brewed whole-leaf tea bases (oolong, jasmine, green, black) and customisable sugar and ice levels, which is something they do at scale better than any independent reasonably can. Their menu is tea-led: milk teas, milk foam (their signature), fruit teas, plus pairing snacks like waffles and croffles.

What they're set up to do well is consistency and tea craft — if you've had a Gong Cha drink in London, Manchester or Singapore, the one in Gravesend will taste broadly the same. The chain's strength is its tea sourcing and brewing protocols. If your priority is genuine tea flavour over flavour-syrup-led drinks, this is the lane Gong Cha is built for. Their early Gravesend reviews on Tripadvisor reflect that focus.

Boba Town — local specialist, family recipes

Boba Town is at St George's Centre, run by a family with — by their own description — secret recipes refined over years of trading. Their published listing notes Made in Kent recognition, and their Google reviews are consistently strong. They specialise: bubble tea is the centre of the menu, with fewer detours into milkshakes and smoothies than we have. That's not a weakness — it's a deliberate focus.

What they're set up to do well is the bubble-tea-as-craft angle. When the menu is narrower, the operator can pay closer attention to each drink. If you want to spend an afternoon trying different boba variations from a place that doesn't try to also sell you a waffle, Boba Town is the choice. Their Google reviews are excellent and their place in the local independent scene is well established.

Multea Choice Kent — authentic Taiwanese

Multea Choice Kent is on King Street, part of the broader Multea Choice independent group. Their positioning is authentic Taiwanese-style bubble tea — so the menu leans into traditional flavours and combinations you'll recognise from Taipei boba shops, including some specialty drinks like Oreo Milk Tea and Matcha Latte that aren't always done well at chains.

One practical note from their published listing as of May 2026: they accept cash only at point of sale (delivery platforms still take card). Worth knowing before you visit. What you get in exchange is a genuinely different style of bubble tea — leaning more towards the Taiwanese tradition than the chain interpretation — and a specialist independent feel that's rare in the UK outside London.

Who wins on what — the decision matrix

The honest version of "best bubble tea in Gravesend" is that each of the four wins on something different. Here's the breakdown:

• Range — Shakes. The combined boba + shakes + smoothies + waffles menu is broader than any of the other three.
• Tea purity — Gong Cha. As a global chain built around tea craft, they have the deepest whole-leaf tea programme.
• Bubble tea specialism — Boba Town. Narrower menu, deeper focus, Made in Kent recognition per their listing.
• Authentic Taiwanese style — Multea Choice Kent. The menu and recipes lean traditional in a way the others don't.
• Vegan range — Shakes. 53 vegan items across the menu, including 6 vegan fruit teas with popping boba and a full vegan milkshake range.
• Family-run independent feel — three-way tie between Shakes, Boba Town and Multea Choice Kent. All three are genuinely independent.
• Card payments / delivery apps — Shakes, Gong Cha and Boba Town all take card and are on the major delivery platforms. Multea Choice is cash-only at point of sale.
• Combined drinks-and-desserts visit — Shakes. The waffles and dessert bowls turn boba into a longer sit-in experience.

What to order at each

A short, friendly cheat-sheet — these are the orders we'd recommend first if a friend was visiting Gravesend with no idea where to start.

• At Shakes — try the Brown Sugar Bliss boba (caramelised tiger stripes, chewy pearls, properly indulgent) or the vegan Lotus Biscoff milkshake if you're plant-based. If you've never had taro, this is the place to be guided through it.
• At Gong Cha — go for one of their signature milk foam teas, ideally over a whole-leaf base like jasmine or oolong. That's the part of their menu they're set up to nail.
• At Boba Town — ask the staff what they'd recommend on the day. With a specialist menu and a family-recipe ethos, they tend to point you at the drinks they're proudest of — and that's worth listening to.
• At Multea Choice Kent — try a traditional Taiwanese-style milk tea, and consider one of their distinctive specials like the Oreo Milk Tea. Bring cash if visiting in person.

A few honest notes

We don't think it's helpful to declare a single winner — too much of the answer depends on what you actually want to drink. If we were forced to give one piece of advice, it'd be this: Gravesend's bubble tea scene benefits from all of these shops being good. A town with one mediocre boba place and three closed ones isn't a town with bubble tea. We've genuinely got something here, and that's better for everyone — customers and businesses included.

If you're new to boba, our offer stands: walk in at Shakes, tell us you've never had bubble tea before, and we'll talk you through the differences between popping boba, tapioca pearls, milk teas and fruit teas. No pressure, no upsell. We genuinely enjoy the conversation.

One last thing

This guide is a snapshot of May 2026. Menus change. New shops open, existing ones evolve. We'll keep this page updated as the scene shifts, and we'll always try to be fair when we do. If you spot something we've got wrong, drop us a message — we'd rather know.