Bubble Tea (Boba)
Bubble tea, or boba, is a Taiwanese sweetened tea drink, usually with milk, served cold with chewy tapioca pearls and a wide straw; it appeared in Taiwan in the 1980s.
Definition
Bubble tea (珍珠奶茶, zhenzhu naicha, "pearl milk tea") was created in Taiwan in the 1980s. Two tea shops claim the invention: Chun Shui Tang in Taichung and Hanlin Tea Room in Tainan. Both trace their versions to the mid-to-late 1980s, and the dispute has never been settled. The drink grew out of Taiwan's shaken iced tea shops, which already served sweetened tea shaken with ice. The word bubble originally referred to the foam made by shaking, not to the pearls. Boba, a slang term for large tapioca pearls, became the common English name on the US West Coast. The drink spread across Asia in the 1990s and to North America through Taiwanese and Chinese communities. A standard bubble tea has a black or oolong tea base, milk or non-dairy creamer, sugar syrup and cooked tapioca pearls, served over ice. Shops offer fruit teas without milk, jellies, pudding, popping boba (juice-filled spheres made by spherification), cheese foam toppings and adjustable sweetness and ice levels. The tea is usually brewed strong and chilled in batches.
In Depth
Tea base: Assam-style black tea and Taiwanese black tea are the usual milk-tea bases; jasmine green tea and roasted oolong are common lighter options. Brew at double strength, about 10-15 g per liter at 95-100°C for 5-8 minutes, so ice and milk do not dilute it to nothing.
Sugar: a full-sugar 700 ml shop drink can contain more than 50 g of sugar, mostly from syrup and from pearls soaked in brown sugar syrup. Most shops let you order 0, 25, 50 or 75 percent sweetness.
Common confusion: tapioca pearls are made from cassava starch and contain no tea. Popping boba is a different product with a thin gel skin and a liquid center. Cheese foam is a salted cream cheese and cream topping, sipped without the straw.
See Also
- Taiwanese Tea Culture
- Milk Tea