So how did this tasty little concoction develop? Tracing back the roots of bubble tea takes us back to Taiwan during the early 1980’s. The origins of bubble tea can be found in a small tea shop in Taichung, Taiwan named “Chun Shui Tang”. This little café, which began as a small tea stand, experimented with cold milk tea by adding fruit, syrup, candied yams and, other assorted treats, pioneering the prototype for contemporary bubble tea ("History").

While this drink did not gain immediate popularity, elementary school children would look forward to buying a cup of refreshing tea after a long, hard day of work and play. Tea stands were set up in front of the schools and would compete for business with the best selling tea. A young woman, the owner of “Chun Shui Tang”, opened up her stand for these children and started to sell her concoction of fruit and cold milk tea. Because of the sweet and cool taste of her drink, children started to swarm her stand every day after school. Soon, other concessions heard about her "unique" and popular tea, so they started to add flavoring to their teas. When adding flavor, the tea and flavoring needed to be shaken well for a good all around taste. This formed bubbles in the drink, which came to be known as "Bubble Tea."

In 1983, Liu Han-Chieh introduced Taiwan to tapioca pearls. The owners of these tea cafes caught on to this new fad and started to add tapioca pearls into a favorite drink. Most of the time tapioca pearls were served in cold infused tea. After the tea and flavor were shaken well, the liquid sat above the tapioca pearls that were sitting on the bottom of a clear cup. The tapioca pearls also looked like bubbles, thus also became to known as “Bubble Tea”. Now, bubbles floated on the top your drink and bottom of your drink!

By the late 1990s, bubble tea began to gain mainstream popularity in the United States and Canada. This "Asian drink" also received some attention in the American media, including Morning Edition on National Public Radio and the Los Angeles Times. Bubble tea can also be found in major European cities, such as London and Paris. Bubble tea has spread internationally mainly through overseas Chinese communities ("Bubble Tea").

Although we have just outlined the specific details of who, when, and how bubble tea was invented, most newspapers that we researched did not have the specific details of how bubble tea was invented. Most of the articles that we found had small blurbs that had somewhat of an "urban legend" feel to them because there were various details that differed between newspapers. The only history that the Tea & Coffee Trade Journal outlined in a July 2005 article was, "In Taiwan, tea is a common offering, so to compete for business one concessionaire decided to add flavoring to her tea. Children loved the taste and soon this became a popular afterschool drink." In January 2005, The Orange Country Register stated that, "Bubble tea originated in Taiwan around 1983 when a tea seller serendipitously dropped a few tapioca pearls into a fruit tea that was popular with schoolchildren." Overall, there seems to be a pattern of an endearing conversational or word-of-mouth quality to the description of boba's invention in newspapers.

Another extremely interesting outcome of the recent widespread popularity of bubble tea is the diversity of names that people have come up with to refer to bubble tea. Take a look at this list below and see if you can remember all these names ("Bubble Tea").

Bubble tea is known under a variety of other names, including:

• black pearl tea
• black pearl ice tea
• boba drink
• 波霸奶茶 bōbà nǎichá — literally "large breast" milk tea.
• boba milk tea (Chinese: 波霸奶茶; pinyin: bōbà nǎichá)
• bubble milk tea
• milk pearl tea
• 奶茶 naicha — literally, "milk tea"
• pearl ice tea
• pearl milk tea (珍珠奶茶; zhēnzhū nǎichá)
• pearl sago (milk) tea — in English only; usually used for canned varieties where pearl sago (西米; xīmǐ; Cantonese: sai1 mai5) is used instead of tapioca.
• pearl tea
• ชาไข่มุก, ชามุก literally, pearl tea
• QQ drinks — kiú is Taiwanese slang for "chewy"
• tapioca drink
• tapioca tea
• trà trân châu (equivalent to 茶珍珠, literally "pearl tea") (Vietnamese)
• 珍珠奶茶 zhēnzhū nǎichá (Putonghua, Taiwanese and overseas Chinese usage) — literally, "pearl milk tea"

In southern Taiwan, pearl milk tea with large pearls are usually called "boba milk tea", while those with small pearls are called "pearl milk tea".

For most Americans, the most common names have been boba, pearl milk tea, and bubble tea.

References

“Bubble Tea.” 06 Mar 2006. Wikipedia. 10 Mar 2006. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubble_tea>.

“History of Bubble Tea.” 05 Jun 2000. Bubble Tea Supply. 10 Mar 2006. <http://www.bubbleteasupply.com>.

Previous
Introduction: A Little Taste of Boba

Next
The Making Of The Perfect Drink - Bubble Tea

Main Page
Bubble Tea: A Refreshing Look