Bubble Tea Becomes A New Trend of Tea Tasting (Revised)

The tea drinking custom in Taiwan is deeply influenced by Chinese Tea Culture, and till nowTaiwanese basically still followed the Chinese way of Tea Tasting. Nevertheless, the invention of “Bubble Tea” not only added a neologism for tea vocabulary but it also created a new era of Yum Cha; the later appearance of “Pearl Milk Tea” (or “Boba Tea”) with its invincible popularity even turned out to be the national drink of Taiwan. It could be said that bubble tea to Taiwanese is what soda and coffee to Americans.

Bubble Tea Originated in Taiwan in early 1980s
Bubble Tea is a kind of soft drink with tea, syrup, and crashed ice shaken in a cocktail shaker created in 1980s, and the fair bubble floats on the top of tea gave it the name. This refreshing and cool new way of tea tasting became well-known in years. The creator of bubble tea then went on adding tapioca pearls into shaken milk tea and this came to known as “Pearl Milk Tea”. With the fad of this new type of beverage, bubble tea bars popped up all over Taiwan and they quickly became the hottest hangouts for young people and students in 1990s.

Bubble Tea Bar in Modern Taiwan
Nowadays there are more and more optional flavors open to customers in bubble tea bars. Besides various kinds of tea, there are also many different fruit juices and other soft drinks available, and customers can pay about extra 30 penny choosing one topping such as tapioca pearls, egg puddings, konjac jelly, grass jelly and chewy things like that for their drink. The busiest time for bubble tea bar is in summer, yet they are still welcome in the rest of the year because most drinks could be served hot and they have winter-only special drinks like ginger milk tea, too.

It is sure that among those drinks “Pearl Milk Tea” is always the best loved. It may be difficult for uninitiated to understand its charm. Tapioca pearl is sweet and its mouthfeel is in-between chewing gum and soft sweets. You need to use an extra-wide straw to suck them up from the bottom of the cup with milk tea. It is fun to enjoy the drink and most people found it addictive.

In recent years most bubble tea bars evolved into “Instant Bubble Tea Bars”, which means the shop usually has no seats and its products are just for to go. Still, there is one feature which makes Taiwan bubble tea bars so unique: only those shops in Taiwan use automatic cup-sealing machine instead of traditional lids, a brillant invention in case of people spilling their drink and in the meantime making it easier for them to go.

This Bubble Tea Bar craze based on Taiwan has spread to East Asian, Southeast Asian, and North America; most of them are introduced by overseas Taiwanese. I believe bubble tea will be a "trend" rather than merely a craze in Tea Tasting. Just give it a try and you will see it is too hard not to love it!