There was a time when the mint of a person slurping up mysterious black balls from a slightly - bigger - than - average straw was book for the regulars at the local Asiatic supermarkets or the bustling street corners of any metropolis ’s Chinatown . true , theteadrinkmustlook exotic to those who produce up in modest towns wherefrozen yogurtstores were hailed as " the next bighearted thing . " Boba tea leaf , or bubble tea leaf , is a quintessentially Taiwanese tea - found drink that contain tapioca musket ball that are chewed along with each sip . For penny-pinching to 40 years , the East Asian sweet crapulence has uprise in popularity , with storehouse like Boba Guys andKung Fu Bobapopping up on both U.S. coasts .
Boba afternoon tea broke onto the picture sometime in the 1980s , though its bloodline are fairly shrouded in mystery thanks to two competing narrative from two rival Taiwanese tea parlour . Tainan ’s Hanlin Tea Room says the drink was comport in 1986 when their founder , Tu Tsung - ho , plant tapioca nut on sale at Tainan ’s Yamuliao market and tally them to his milk tea at base .
Rival teahouse Chun Shui Tang believes it was a then-20 - year - onetime employee named Lin Hsiu - hui who created the drink in 1987 when she " decided to dumpher Formosan dessert call fen yuan — a sweeten tapioca pudding — into her Assam iced teatime and drink it , " consort to Twinings , the tea company .
The boba tea leaf phenomenon first migrated from Taiwan to the west coast of America in the nineties , where it quickly became a fad in Formosan immigrant community , ingest into Taiwanese - American culture next and , from there , make its manner into mainstream American society .
Regardless of who can actually take claim over boba tea , both origin stories include tapioca balls , a flare of inspiration and an extensive bout of experimentation that finally commit the world what we now know as bubble tea leaf .
Taiwan and Tapioca
Taiwan ’s special relationship with milk tea began in the 1940s when a former barkeeper named Chang Fan Shu open up a tea shop speciate in hand - shaken afternoon tea integrate in acocktail mover and shaker . The result of the furious shaking was a rich and frothy tea with light foam bubbles on top : bubble teatime ! So , what assort tea asbobatea ? Traditionally , it always included the four primary constituent of milk , ice , black tea and , of course , those chewy tapioca bone that manage to stay perfectly suspend within their milklike homes . Variations on the classic concoction imply non - milk - based teas ( almond , cashew , and oat ) , green tea , white or oolong afternoon tea , condensed Milk River , yield and specialflavors likehibiscus , saffron , cardamomand rosewater . And the hokey , rotund pièce de résistance ?
" Bobais made of tapioca , a starch extracted from the cassava stem veggie , " says Aaron Yang , Vice President ofDin Tai Fung Restaurant Group .
It always come back to the pearls . Fun fact : tapioca pearls actually start from Island Southeast Asia ( a.k.a . Maritime Southeast Asiawhich includes the body politic Brunei , Indonesia , Malaysia , the Philippines , Singapore and East Timor ) and are traditionally made from aboriginal starches like rice orpalm hearts . Used in a variety of sweet and savory dishes , it was n’t until the introduction of house of cards tea in the eighties that boba went mainstream throughout the world .
Although boba tea had its origin in Taiwan , it has exploded in popularity around the world . Yang say their teas are brew bracing every day and are still hand - shake like they were in onetime times . To keep their Las Vegas debut , Din Tai Fung create the " spiced boba , " made of a tantalizing combining of rum , ginger syrup , one-half and half , black tea and angostura bark bitters served with boba pearls .
It probably goes without saying that the boba teas of 2021 are a bitty bit different than the original boba tea drinkable served out of those tiny Formosan teahouses during the 1980s . Now , it ’s all about the toppings . Fruit , custard , crimson beans , jellies ( everything fromlycheetoaloe vera ) , popping bubbles , pudding and evensalted cheesethat reportedly began " quite meekly as powdered high mallow whipped into milk and top with a scattering of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks , " grant to the Seattle Times . Boba afternoon tea has a twain of hallmark attributes of the perfect dessert : It ’s rich , thick , delicious and customizable to the nth degree .
We ’ll never bed who ’s responsible for for the boba afternoon tea craze — where it was Tu Tsung - ho or Lin Hsiu - hui — but with only 34 ( or 35 ) years of history behind it , we very well could still be at the beginning leg of a full - on boba tea rotation . We ’ve run into hazardous tang inspired by puerility breakfast cereal from California’sBoba Tea LoungeorThe Fuego Mangotopped with stinker - lime tree chile bit and lichi jelly . No matter how you shake it , there ’s a boba tea out there for everybody .
