The History of Bubble Tea and Boba Tea

Bubble tea is a cool, refreshing, sweet drink with boba, aka tapioca pearls (or flavored jellies, or popping boba), sitting on the bottom of a clear cup.

It is a specialty dessert drink that comes with a fruit or milk tea base, a variety of flavors, and a uniquely fat straw to suck up the boba. If you want to impress somebody say “I just ordered a Boba Fruit Tea at Billie Gold” or “I just ordered some Boba Milk Tea at Billie Gold.”

Tapioca pearls are usually black but can be white or transparent in color. It varies depending on the ingredients of the pearl. White and translucent pearls are made of tapioca starch, while black pearls include tapioca starch, sometimes cassava root, brown sugar, and caramel, to add the black color.

Many people think thte texture of tapioca is similar to a gummy bear. The pearls are approximately the size of a marble.

Bubble tea originated in Taiwan in the early 1980s at a small tea stand.

After a long school day, elementary school children would purchase a cup of tea at nearby tea stands. One concession stand became particularly popular when she added fruit flavorings to her tea. Soon, everyone else started adding flavorings to theirs. To fully enjoy the flavor, the tea needed to be shaken. This shaking formed bubbles in the tea; alas, bubble tea was born.

Then, in 1983, Liu Han-Chieh introduced Taiwan to tapioca pearls. The new fad became adding tapioca pearls to your favorite drink. Because the pearls were served in cold-infused tea and were sitting on the bottom, they also looked like bubbles. Bubbles floated on top and bottom of the drinks.

Bubble tea is also known as Boba drink, Pearl tea drink, Boba ice tea, Boba, Boba Nai Cha, Zhen Zhou Nai Cha, Pearl milk tea, Pearl ice tea, Black pearl tea, tapioca ball drink, BBT, PT, Pearl shake, QQ (which means chewy in Taiwanese) and possibly many others.