Bubble Tea (Boba Milk Tea)

Bubble tea is a cold drink built on a black or green tea base with fresh milk, syrup and brown-sugar tapioca pearls, named for the pearl-like boba, in which the fragrance of tea, the richness of milk and the chew of the pearls meet.

Bubble tea is recognised as having been created in the 1980s at Chun Shui Tang in Taichung, where the developer Lin Xiu-hui stirred the tapioca pearls she had loved as a child into a tea blend; although the Hanlin Tea Room in Tainan also claims it, Chun Shui Tang is widely seen as its source, and after the 1990s the drink spread across the world.

Served in a film-sealed cup with a wide straw, drinkers first draw up the pearls resting at the bottom and then sip the milk tea; both hot and cold versions exist, though iced is the most popular, a hand-shaken drink for strolling or afternoon tea.

The chewy bouncy brown-sugar pearls, the balance of tea and milk, and the legend of its Taichung Chun Shui Tang origin sweeping the world are the hallmarks of bubble tea.