Bubble Tea - a chewy look at its mysterious (and controversial) origins

You've seen it, you've probably enjoyed it. Boba or bubble tea is a delicious and indulgent treat with a seductive mixture of flavors and textures. Two stores in Taiwan both claim invention of it. Hanlin Tea Room claims its founder Tu Tsung-ho made a bulk purchase of white tapioca balls at the Yamuliao market in the city of Tainan, cooked them, and added them to milk tea, selling the mixture as "pearl milk tea." This happened in 1986, and even today at the Hanlin Tea Room, customers can choose between the original white tapioca balls, or the dominant black variety. The question here, of course, is pearl milk tea the same as bubble tea? Chun Shui Tang in Taichung says it isn't. Instead it claims that in 1987, employee Lin Hsiu-hui combined her favorite snack, black tapioca balls made with brown sugar, with iced milk lemon tea, creating the first "true" boba or bubble tea. Chun Shui Tang and Hanlin Tea Room took each other to court, but in the end neither shop was able to register themselves as the inventor with the Taiwanese government.

Depending on how one defines invention, the true answer may be neither really invented it. In the Dutch East Indies in the 19th century (present day Indonesia), there was a dessert called "tjendol" in Dutch or cendol in English. Cendol is made from rice flour or sago palm flour to make chewy "worms" which are served either in a bowl or a drinking glass immersed in coconut milk mixed with palm sugar. Cendol (or dawet in Javanese) is part of a traditional Javanese wedding ceremony. The day before the ceremony, the parents of the bride conduct a ceremonial sale of dawet to guests, who pay with ceremonial coins meant to represent future family wealth, as well as to increase the number of guests at the wedding the next day. Cendol does not contain tea, and the chewy bits are more worm-like than bubble like, but the core elements are all there.

Bubble tea's other name, "boba" is a bit provocative. The round shape of the tapioca "bubbles" apparently seemed similar to human breasts to Taiwanese drinkers, as "boba" is Taiwanese slang for breasts. A Tainan hawker who sold the drink named it after the nickname for Hong Kong actress Amy Yip, who was famous for her ample endowment. As the treat grew in popularity, shop owners began experimenting to differentiate their product from all of the other shops. Fruit powders and syrups were added first, then the tapioca balls were swapped out for grass jelly, almond jelly, sweet red bean paste, and many other options. Because of the high ambient temperatures in Taiwan, the milk in milk tea was soon swapped for non-dairy creamer, which was more stable in tropical heat. It also added much more creaminess and sweetness to the drink, which worked well to balance the bitterness of most Chinese teas.

In Taiwan, boba tea became a night market staple, where multiple stalls would compete for customers with new innovations. Taiwanese immigrants also introduced it to California in the late 1990s. The rise in the popularity of East Asian culture saw the spread of boba shops. Boba tea became associated with Asian American cultural identity.

British investment banker Assad Khan helped to make bubble tea popular outside of Asian markets and food courts. He drank a bubble tea at a shop in New York and was smitten. Khan saw an opportunity and launched Bubbleology in 2011. His first shop in London's Soho had a staff wearing lab coats and removed itself from its Taiwanese roots, and served to introduce boba tea to a new audience. The development of the cup sealer and the oversized straw necessary for the larger black boba were also critical developments in the spread of boba tea.

Bubble tea might now be the most famous thing from Taiwan. Enjoy some today, and marvel how our globalized economy allows taste sensations to spread around the world.