Tea Emperor

Actress Jodie Foster was spotted on a bubble tea break. As you can see, the answer is celebrity association. Now, the Taiwanese bubble milk tea has it made because it is tasty, sweet, possibly vegetarian, non-fattening, soft, milky and chewy - a perfect drink and cake combined. Has anyone else seen a celebrity trotting around with one of these cups?

If you ask any oversea Taiwanese: what drink they miss most from home, I bet more than half of them will say: bubble tea.

Bubble tea is a tea beverage originated in Taiwan in 1980s. Nowadays it can be found in many East Asian countries as well as in Canada and the States. Since a few years ago it also started to be available in a small tea house in Paris, opened by Taiwanese of course. Drinking bubble tea has been such a huge trend in Taiwan that nowadays it is not especially “trendy” any more as everybody drinks it and takes it to their heart as a natural part of daily life. Bubble tea has even been considered as one of the “innovations” from Taiwan and no doubt as one of the most representative food/drink from the island.

So, back to the essential question: what is bubble tea? In short, it is black milk tea mixed together with boba balls (made from a mixture of tapioca and carrageenan powder). Sounds weird for those who never tried it, but as long as you try it, you will love it!

Nowadays bubble tea has so many variations. For example, boba balls can differ in sizes, tastes, ingredients, in addition, tea type can also be replaced. Some add green tea instead black tea with popular variations such as jasmine infused bubble green tea. Different spices and fruit taste can be added into the tea, so you could easily find coconut bubble tea, banana bubble tea, mango bubble tea, peach bubble tea, green apple bubble tea, passion fruit bubble tea, kiwi bubble tea etc, just to name a few. For those who prefer non-fruit flavors, taro bubble tea, pudding bubble tea, barley bubble tea, sesame bubble tea, ginger bubble tea, almond bubble tea, lavender bubble tea etc. are common choices. With bubble tea, sky is the limit.

It is also noted that bubble tea can be served cold or hot. I myself prefer hot ones but cold bubble tea was the one that originally got its unique status in Taiwanese tea scene.

There will be more posts about Taiwanese Bubble Tea here in the future. So stay tuned.