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In the universe of sip and go drinks, the iced coffee and bubble tea has revolutionised the way people can consume their beverage. Pouring a cold beverage into a tall glass with a lid and a straw to drink from is a consumer style that has taken over the world, in reality and otherwise. Bubble tea or boba tea, a drink of Taiwanese origins came about in the 1980s when tea shop owner Liu Han-Chieh of Taichung brewed strong tea and sweetened it with condensed milk before pouring on top of chewy tapioca pearls.
Soon enough, within a decade, the beverage crossed across to the USA to the state of California, where it was initially met with apprehension before people got a taste of it and its popularity spread. The concept of the milky-sweet concoction flavoured with berries, matcha or red beans and served with tapioca pearls that settle at the bottom, is one that mingles textures and flavours seamlessly. Bubble tea is usually available in two variations – with and without milk. The tastes usually range from fruity-tangy to milky-sweet along with flavoured tapioca pearls in jewel colours.
Bubble tea, due to its raging popularity in the West and now, on social media, has grown synonymous with Asian representation across the globe. Countries like Singapore, Japan, South Korea, India have taken to the bubble tea craze, with various cloud kitchens and restaurants featuring the drink as an option on their menus. The beverage has gained recognition and a solid fan base of its own, which has been neck to neck with the popularity of sushi. Boba tea shops usually serve bubble tea in a tall glass sealed with cellophane, that you can pierce with a larger-than-usual straw to allow the tapioca pearls to pass through.
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The aesthetic appeal of bubble tea, also known as black pearl tea, has inspired alternate forms of consuming them; from ice creams, cakes and even boba candies, the bubble tea market is anticipated to be worth a shocking 4.3 billion dollars by 2027. To make bubble tea, the ingredients are usually added to a shaker with ice and manually mixed. However, due to the high demand in numbers, bubble tea machines have begun to largely dominate most outlets. The significance of bubble tea in Taiwan’s food culture has grown considerably to the point where they celebrate April 30 as National Bubble Tea Day since 2020.
Apart from this, popular culture has been swept by this symbolism in the form of bubble tea emojis as well as becoming an alternative illustration to use on Taiwan’s passport cover. While the origin story claims that a tea shop owner invented the beverage, there are stories of the owner of the Hanlin Tea Room deciding to add tapioca balls to sweet milk tea. Either way, when you’re looking for a refreshing drink this summer, grab a cup of some sweet and delicious boba tea.
