Tag Archives: la

LA Boba Shops

There is endless boba in Los Angeles. I currently live in Ktown where every block seems to have a boba shop, a patbingsu shop, or both.

It’s hard to rank boba joints, because the drink customization (sugar level) and drinks on the same menu vary so much. There could be a big difference between the house specialty (let’s say rose milk tea) and the random drink (almond milk tea).

I value the quality of the ingredients (made in house with real things instead of powder), the freshness of the pearls (boba), and the flavor profile (not mind-numbingly sweet). I’ve tried many dozens of boba joints in LA, and I usually order large, 50% sugar, and less ice.

Below are places that have consistently good drinks with a sample recommended order. Not every order is your standard PMT (pearl milk tea).

Good

  • Gong Cha
    • QQ Passion Fruit Green Tea (comes with pearls & coconut jelly)
      (fruity & refreshing)
  • Sharetea
    • Taro Fresh Milk Tea with Pearls
      (real taro bits is a plus)
  • Tan-Cha
    • High Mountain Green Tea with Cheese Foam
      (as a cheese foam drink, it is heavier than a PMT)
  • Ten Ren’s Tea Time
    • Honey Milk Tea with Pearls
      (their teas are underrated)
  • Twinkle Brown Sugar (Ozero)
    • Brown Sugar Grass Jelly
      (drinks like a meal)

Decent

  • 7 Leaves Cafe
    • Sea Cream Jasmine Tea with Honey Boba
      (crema top layer)
  • 85C Bakery
    • Sea Salt Mountain Green Tea
      (has a good foam/crema top layer. their boba is bad)
  • Kung Fu Tea
    • Jelly Wow
      (not a traditional PMT, more of a meal)
  • TPumps
    • Mango Passion Peach with Boba
      (tea is very “drinkable”, not the best, but it goes down well. boba is not fresh)
  • Wushiland Boba
    • Jasmine Green Milk Tea with Pearls
      (try 1/2 regular & 1/2 small pearls)

While I don’t inherently favor chains, I’ve found that big chains from Asia are more reliable and consistent with the boba freshness. Gong Cha 9 out of 10 times will have fresh boba, whereas your average LA boba shop will probably not have fresh boba.

LA Commute Visualization

This month, I chose to visualize LA commutes. The data is visualized & published here:  http://xta.github.io/la_commute/

la_commute_ss

For the starting locations, I chose a mix based on highly populated areas and places of interest to me. I wanted to get a good distribution throughout the greater LA area. I realize that most people wouldn’t commute nearly two hours a day, but the sad reality is that people do have these long or even longer commutes.

For the destinations, I chose three popular, work-concentrated areas (Santa Monica, Century City, and Downtown Los Angeles). I realize that many people do not work in these 3 locations, but these locations help visualize a horizontal slice across central LA.

My workflow was running a local Ruby script multiple times a day throughout the past few weeks. I have both morning & evening commute data, but I think morning commutes are more interesting. I may be wrong, but I’m assuming that morning commutes are more consistent (people leave for work around 7 to 8am, and they leave work anywhere from 3 to 9pm).

Once I had the data, I loaded my csv file(s) into Google Sheets. With Google Sheets, I did basic sorting and aggregating of the commute times. I output my data in a specific format so that I could easily consume it with my JS code.

Loading the data into Leaflet.js markers wasn’t too bad. The hardest part was styling & displaying the commute data properly. Originally, I wanted to draw labelled lines between the different locations to the destination, but labelling lines appears to be really difficult with web map libraries. I also didn’t want to hide all the data behind a tooltip that had to be clicked.

Overall, I’m pleased with my basic workflow and the power of Leaflet.js. Collecting traffic data was the most difficult part.

Mapping library used is Leaflet.js. Map & map data are from OpenStreetMap contributors. Map tiles are from CartoDB.

Maptime Movement

I’ve attended Maptime in both NYC & LA. Each location seems to make the event their own. If you’re interested in maps, you should definitely check out a local Maptime event.

maptime

In NYC, we worked on different mapping challenges (subway maps, D3.js, etc.). In LA, we went over using git & Github.