Bubble Tea (Boba)

Bubble tea is an iced drink built on black or green tea, blended with fresh milk or creamer and sugar and mixed with black tapioca pearls—called boba or "pearls"—served with a wide straw so the pearls can be sucked up, the tea's fragrance paired with a chewy bite.

Bubble tea originated in Taiwan in the 1980s, where tea shops in Taichung or Tainan are variously said to have first added tapioca pearls to milk tea; from around 1987 both Chun Shui Tang and Hanlin Tea Room claim its invention, after which it spread across Taiwan and then the world, becoming the global symbol of Taiwanese tea culture.

Made to order and drunk at once, most often iced and cold though hot versions exist, sipped through a wide straw to draw up the pearls, a handheld street drink found on almost every corner of Taipei.

The chewy bounce of the black pearls against the sweet milk tea, drunk through a wide straw, is the unmistakable mark of bubble tea.