Bubble Tea History
Boba Bubble Tea History
Bubble tea, a drink that has been widely appreciated by people in the Asian suburbs, is also fun to eat. It is taking people away from their trendy coffee drinks and is becoming the new craze in west coast cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle. It is also becoming popular in New York City, in the Hawaiian Islands, and even in Vancouver and Toronto in Canada.
A Different Kind of Tea
Bubble tea is loosely associated with a popular drink that has been given different names such as pearl shake, tapioca pearl drink, tapioca ball drink, pearl tea, black pearl tea, boba ice tea, bubble drink, boba nai, momi, momi milk, nai cha,, zhen zhu nai chai, and others.
Bubble tea is different from the day-to-day tea that people are familiar with. Its composition cannot be easily understood by people who had been drinking tea the traditional way. It is typically made of tea, sugar, milk, and the black tapioca balls or pearls. It is sweet but the sugar content is less than what is found in the typical carbonated soda drinks. The “bubble” refers to the formation of foam when the drink is shaken, the best way of mixing it instead of stirring.
Bubble tea can be prepared in different variations, depending on the store that sells it, such as bubble milk green tea with tapioca, bubble milk tea with tapioca. As one goes around different stores and countries where Bubble Tea is offered, he will find hundreds of variants or names for the same drink.
Origin of Boba Bubble Tea
The origin of bubble tea is traced to Taiwan, a country that practices the traditional tea ceremonies. Taiwanese consume different varieties of tea such as the Iron Goddess and Alpine Oolong, black teas, and green teas. The Taiwanese tea culture dates back to the ancient Chinese civilization. Tea drinking is part of the everyday Taiwanese life, giving rise to various tea houses or tea-arts shop all over the territory.
The common belief is that bubble tea has its origin in 1988 at Shui Tang, a local tea house. Lin Hsiu Hui, the tea house’s product manager, had sweetened tapioca for dessert during a staff meeting when she impulsively poured the tapioca in the glass of ice tea she was drinking. The resulting drink from the mixture caught the attention of everybody in the meeting who decided to try it among themselves. Everybody liked the mixture and what started as a playful action turned out to be a concoction that the tea house started to offer its patrons. The new tea flavor became a top seller for the tea house.
The drink became popular in the area and later throughout Taiwan and the different parts of Southeast Asia. The popularity of the drink spread to other countries with Asian population, including the western countries. In 2012, McDonald’s McCafe in Austria and Germany offered bubble tea to their customers.
Wide Acceptance of Bubble Tea from all over the word
From its playful beginnings in a Taiwanese tea house, bubble tea, with its different variations is now widely accepted in many cities all over the world. What started as a drink enjoyed by people of Asian descent, bubble tea is now appreciated by people coming from different racial groups.
