Xing Fu Tang (幸福堂) started this exact storefront on Hanzhong Street in January 2018 and went on to popularise brown-sugar bubble tea worldwide — it now runs over 150 branches across 18-plus countries, but this is the original. The signature drink is built around boba pearls stir-fried in a wok of melted brown sugar in full view of the queue, then swirled with fresh milk to streak the inside of the cup before the tapioca even goes in.
The flagship draws a long line most afternoons, partly for the drink and partly for the open-kitchen theatre of watching the pearls get tossed and caramelised. It sits right on Hanzhong Street, Ximending's main pedestrian spine, an easy stop between Ximen MRT Exit 6 and the Red House.