Wushiland Boba

In 2024 and 2025, Wushiland Boba opened its first and second Orange County locations in Fullerton and Irvine, bringing tea recipes that had already proved popular at its Taiwanese parent chain (Wu-Shih-Lan) and earlier locations in LA and San Diego Counties to an excited OC fanbase. In Irvine alone, it faces heavy local competition, with at least four tea shop neighbors including Heytea, 7 Leaves, Soma, and Lollicup within a five-minute walk, and plenty of additional options (such as the newly opened Taiwanese/Chinese/American Bopomofo Cafe) just down the street. But Wushiland’s announcement of a two-week-long soft opening immediately generated day-and-night lines – soon followed by complaints about wait times and drink quality, as the new staff struggled with a crush of customers.

After visiting Wushiland for ourselves, we can understand both the lines and the complaints. First, their drinks offer good value for their prices: Customers can choose between a handful of brewed teas, fruit teas, or Ovaltine cocoa drinks mixed with milk, latte milk, macchiato cream, Yakult yogurt, ice cream, and/or brown sugar, plus boba, mini-boba pearls, grass jelly, coconut jelly, or red beans as toppings. Every drink is priced from $4.24 to $6.99 before toppings, which go for 80 cents each.

Wushiland’s drinks generally do not look very good – many of the cups we saw were various shades of milky beige with black dots at the bottom – but they’re large, as the chain fills 25-ounce cups by default. Ice cream drinks get a scoop of ice cream on top, an option you won’t find at almost any other boba tea place in the area, unless you order a (differently balanced) affogato. For $1, you can add a scoop of vanilla or mango ice cream to any drink that doesn’t already include it.