Taiwan’s Obsession with Bubble Tea

A woman drinks boba tea with lights in the background

It’s known as bubble tea, boba tea, and pearl milk tea. And its signature chewy tapioca balls floating at the bottom of the cup have made it nothing short of an obsession in Taiwan.

Now world-famous, the beverage is made with tea (green or black) and milk and served with an oversized straw to allow the tapioca pearls to pass through. While they start off white, hard, and tasteless, the tapioca pearls get their sweetness and soft texture from being boiled for hours in caramelized syrup. 

The traditional preparation involves mixing the ingredients in a bubble tea shaker cup and hand shaking them. However, many bubble tea shops use a machine.

The tapioca balls were originally a common topping for Taiwanese desserts. So how did they become part of the popular drink in the 1980s?  

One story credits the product manager for a Taiwanese tea shop who put them in her iced tea at a staff meeting. The drink was so well received that the shop decided to include it on its menu. Another story claims that the owner of the Hanlin Tea Room in Tainan invented the beverage.

Regardless of which story is true, the beverage’s popularity has given rise to more than 20,000 bubble tea shops in Taiwan that serve dozens of varieties and flavors. Milks range from cows to almond and coconut, and the tapioca balls can be large or small. Most of them are black, but some are red or even transparent.

One kind of bubble tea contains taro, a root similar to sweet potato, which gives the tea a coconut-like flavor. For those who don’t want milk, there are many fruit-flavored boba drinks, such as mango, lychee, lemon, and passion fruit.

You can even get bubble tea with pearls made from almond jelly, aloe vera, and egg pudding.

Bubble tea has become such an important symbol of Taiwanese culture that, in 2020, April 30 was declared National Bubble Tea Day. The beverage’s huge place in Taiwan’s food culture has also led to spinoffs such a bubble tea ice cream and bubble tea ramen.