It may not be too much of a stretch to say bubble tea has taken the tea world by storm.
Bubble tea as a beverage is bold, daring, bordering almost on the blasphemous - when seen in the light of the history of tea.
Dukes and Duchesses of York, porcelain tea cups, proper English accents: we have been brought up on these images of tea and they have resided in our popular imagination. Imagine now the Queen of England sipping tapioca pearls through a Fat Straw from her porcelain cup. The image is jarring, unusual, and the effect is too surreal. After all, what can we expect when we picture the Queen sipping a beverage that has for one of its names a female body part (boba)? Tracing the steps on the road to bubble tea, however, we see the history of tea coming full circle. Bubble tea brings the disparate strands of tea's history together, and bubble tea takes us on a journey from historical China, then to Europe, then to the United States, and then finally back to modern Taiwan.
First comes the tea. . .
Chinese legend has it that tea was "invented" in 2737 B.C. when the legendary Emperor Shen-nung drank water that had been infused with the flavour and aroma of a Camellia sinensis leaf. Camellia sinensis is a plant native to certain parts of China. All true teas are brewed from varieties of Camellia sinensis leaves -- even the tea we use for bubble or boba teas. The Emperor believed in boiling water as a hygienic and preventative measure, and while he was boiling water in his garden one day, unbeknownst to him, a leaf from a nearby plant fell into his pot. He drank the water and was pleasantly surprised at the effects of the beverage, at once stimulating the mind and calming the nerves.
TEA . . . = Bubble Tea
The practice of drinking tea was born: we are one step closer to bubble or boba tea.
Next comes the milk. . .
There are purists who will tell you that tea should never be drunk with milk, but the practice of adding milk to tea nevertheless remains prevalent today. In 1680, Marquise Marie de Rabutin-Chantal was reputed to have added milk to her tea, probably as protection for her delicate porcelain cups. Hot tea when poured too quickly will cause the porcelain cups to crack. No to cracks and yes to a delicious beverage, milk tea.
TEA . . . TEA + MILK . . . = Bubble Tea
We are another step closer to bubble or boba tea.
Next comes the ice. . .
We do not know whether in the course of two thousand years tea was always drunk hot without fail -- chances are a lukewarm cup of tea slipped through once in a while -- but the first recorded incident of adding ice to tea can be traced back to 1904, at the St. Louis World's Fair. Unable to sell his tea because of the prevailing hot weather, Richard Blechynden hit on an inspired marketing idea: pouring tea over ice. The practice of drinking iced tea was born, and in the United States, almost 90% of the tea drunk is still in the form of iced tea.
TEA . . . TEA+MILK . . . TEA + MILK + ICE . . . = Bubble Tea
Iced tea brings us another step to bubble or boba tea.
Next comes the tapioca pearls. . .
Tapioca pearls are made mostly from tapioca starch. Tapioca starch is starch from tapioca or bitter-cassava plant, sometimes called manioca or yuca in some parts of the world. The bitter-cassava plant is native to South America and was introduced into Asia sometime during the 19th century where it was quickly adopted as a staple food in many different cultures. The bitter-cassava plant -- and the starch it produces -- has been an all-purpose, all around useful plant.
To form the black tapioca pearls for bubble tea, the tapioca starch is heated with water and caramel to a thick paste, which is then run through moist sieves to form pellets of different sizes. In 1983, Liu Han-Chieh was said to have introduced Taiwan to tapioca pearls.
TEA . . . TEA+MILK . . . TEA+MILK+ICE . . . TEA + MILK + ICE + PEARLS . . .
Enter the Cocktail Shaker Cup:
SHAKE SHAKE SHAKE
A new kind of beverage was thus born -- BUBBLE TEA.
We do not know where bubble tea will take us next. Some commentators have dubbed bubble tea the "Chinese cola" or the "McChildren's drink of the decade" (quoted in Jacqueline Newman's article, "Bubble Tea", Flavor and Fortune (1999:6(4)). It remains to be seen whether bubble tea will be as widespread a phenomenon as Coke or McDonald's. We at Asia Foods definitely believe that bubble tea has great potential to be as popular and we invite you to write the next chapters of the history of bubble tea with us.
