There are now more than 21,000 boba shops in Taiwan, with thousands more around the world - many belonging to successful international chains like CoCo Fresh Tea & Juice (都可), Gong Cha, and Sharetea. The pearls can be fat as marbles, small as peas, square-shaped, red, or even crystal clear. Milks can range from whole and skim to nondairy substitutes like almond and coconut - or often there’s no milk (or milk-like product) at all, as in the case of cold tea-infused or juice-based drinks. Since its beginnings, the basic tapioca iced tea recipe has evolved into an entire genre of drinks. The one thing that everybody agrees upon is that the name “boba” is a reference to the 1980s Hong Kong sex symbol Amy Yip, whose nickname, “Boba,” is also a Chinese slang term for her most famous pair of physical assets.Īn employee fills a cup at TopQ in Banqiao, Taipei There are rival origin myths, too: One credits Hanlin Tea Room (翰林茶館), a tea shop in Tainan. A few years later, the company’s product manager, Lin Hsiu Hui, plopped some tapioca balls into her iced tea at a staff meeting, and the rest, apparently, is beverage history. But the two weren’t combined until, as one version of the story goes, Liu Han Chieh began serving cold tea at his Taichung tea shop, Chun Shui Tang (春水堂人文茶館), sometime in the early ’80s. Prior to the 1980s, Q-rich tapioca balls were a common topping for desserts like the ubiquitous heaps of snow-like shaved ice found throughout Taiwan, while milk tea was already a favorite local drink.
Like the Italian notion of al dente, Q is difficult to master and hard to capture - boba with the right Q factor isn’t too soft or too bouncy, but has just the right amount of toothiness. Indeed, the quality of boba drinks is measured by how much Q power lurks within the tapioca pearls. It’s also key to the texture of mochi, fish balls, and noodles. Look around and you’ll see the Q plastered prominently on food packaging and affixed to shop signs. Known locally as Q or QQ (as in, very Q), the untranslatable bouncy, rubbery, chewy consistency is treasured in Taiwan. It’s that addictive texture that’s become the boba signature. Tapioca pearls start white, hard, and rather tasteless, and then are boiled inside huge, bubbling vats and steeped in sugary caramelized syrup for hours, until eventually they’re transformed into those black, springy tapioca pearls we’ve come to know and slurp.Ĭustom bubble tea holders are a staple in Taipei The pearls are made from tapioca starch, an extract of the South American cassava plant, which came to Taiwan from Brazil via Southeast Asia during the period of Japanese rule between 18. ( In the U.S., the East Coast favors bubble tea, while the West prefers boba.) Whatever you call it, in its most basic form, the drink consists of black tea, milk, ice, and chewy tapioca pearls, all shaken together like a martini and served with that famously fat straw to accommodate the marbles of tapioca that cluster at the bottom of the cup. Boba tea, bubble tea, and pearl milk tea - in Taiwan, zhenzhu naicha (珍珠奶茶) - are essentially different names for the same thing the monikers differ by location, but also personal preference. The word “boba” can refer to either a broad category of chunky drinks - including everything from iced tea with tapioca pearls to fresh juice loaded with fruity bits - or black tapioca pearls themselves.
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