

It’s a common misconception that boba tea is referred to as bubble tea due to the bubble-like tapioca pearls at the bottom of the cup. Now you'd be hard-pressed to visit a college town in the U.S. Soon after, this Taiwanese beverage took America by storm - shops appeared in local Chinatowns, Taiwanese neighborhoods and even non-Asian shopping districts. By the early 1990s, boba tea expanded to other places like Japan and Hong Kong. It’s hard to pinpoint the exact location or the first person who came up with the idea of boba tea, but at a certain point during the ’80s, tea shops began serving cold tea mixed with fruity flavorings and the iconic tapioca pearls. This amazing beverage originated in Taiwan in the early 1980s.
#Boba origin plus#
Itsarasak thithuekthak / iStock / Getty Images Plus Where did boba tea come from? Once they’re ready, they become those beloved dark, chewy pearls that have to be slurped up with an extra-large straw. These pearls start off white, hard and tasteless, but then they’re boiled and steeped in a sugary syrup (often brown sugar or honey) for hours. Tapioca pearls (or boba pearls) are made of cassava starch, which comes from the cassava plant. You must be curious about those little pearls that give boba tea its unique appearance. For the coffee connoisseurs, most menus include coffee milk teas, so you can get your caffeine fix. If you’re not a fan of creamy milk teas, you can always get fruit teas without the milk. Black or green tea are most common used as the base of the drink you can then choose to add flavored syrups like peach, strawberry or lychee along with milk and ice cubes. But over time, people have experimented with different combinations.

But it’s also used to refer to the tapioca pearls, which are small chewy orbs that sit at the bottom of most boba teas.Ī classic boba or bubble tea typically consists of black tea, milk and tapioca pearls. Boba can refer to a cold tea-based drink or juice filled with tapioca pearls or fruit bits. But let’s start by clarifying what boba is. What is boba?ĭepending on where you live in America, you may hear this colorful beverage called different names - bubble tea, boba milk tea or pearl milk tea. Though its recognition and popularity have grown in the United States over the last couple of years, boba tea has been around for a long time. It would be difficult to avoid boba shops today, especially if you live in major cities like New York City or Los Angeles. How do you choose a base, flavors or toppings? What exactly is boba? But you don’t even know where to begin when you see all of the creative ways you can customize your drink. The poster shows that the beverage comes in various, vibrant flavors - from matcha and mango to taro and strawberry - and it pulls you in to make an order. Imagine walking down the street and you come across a storefront with bright, colorful advertisements for boba tea.
