What it is
Bubble tea, or pearl milk tea (珍珠奶茶, zhenzhu naicha), is black or green tea shaken with ice and sugar, mixed with milk and poured over chewy tapioca balls (粉圓, fenyuan). It comes in a sealed cup with a wide straw for the pearls. Abroad it is often called boba, a name used far more in the United States than in Asia.
Where it came from
Shaken tea came first. In the 1980s Taiwanese teahouses sold brewed tea sweetened with syrup and shaken with ice until frothy. Liu Han-chieh (劉漢介), who opened a teahouse in Taichung in 1983 that became Chun Shui Tang (春水堂), began serving tea cold after seeing cold coffee in Japan.
Who first added tapioca is disputed. Chun Shui Tang says an employee, Lin Hsiu-hui (林秀慧), tipped tapioca balls into a tea drink on a whim in 1987. Hanlin Tea Room (翰林茶館) in Tainan says its owner, Tu Tsong-he (凃宗和), had the idea in 1986 after seeing white tapioca balls at Yamuliao market (鴨母寮市場), and named the drink after their pearly look. The two went to court, and after about a decade a ruling in 2019 found that bubble tea could not be patented, crediting neither side.
By the mid-1990s pearl milk tea was on teahouse menus across Taiwan. Machines that seal cups with plastic film turned it into a takeaway drink, and it spread through East and Southeast Asia in the 1990s and later much further. Taiwan declared 30 April National Bubble Tea Day in 2020.
How it is made
Shops buy hard, uncooked tapioca pearls and boil them, cooking them with sugar until they turn chewy and dark. Cooked pearls are normally not sold after a day, as they harden. Tea is brewed at a lower heat for green tea and near boiling for black. Tea, sweetener, milk and ice are shaken by hand or by machine, then poured over the pearls and the cup is sealed.
How to eat it
A drink for any time of day, bought from takeaway tea stands. Ordering means choosing sweetness and ice. Sugar runs from full (全糖) through half (半糖) and light (微糖) to none (無糖). Ice can be normal (正常), less (少冰) or none (去冰). Push the wide straw through the film lid to drink.
Around Taiwan
- Tainan
- Tainan's claim belongs to Hanlin Tea Room, whose owner says he added white tapioca balls from Yamuliao market to milk tea in 1986. The pearls were pale at first and turned dark only later, when brown sugar was added.
- Central
- Taichung's Chun Shui Tang, which began as a teahouse in 1983, says the first cup of pearl milk tea was made there by an employee, Lin Hsiu-hui, in 1987.
