History and Culture of Bubble Tea

The famous drink known as Boba/Bubble Tea first originated in the streets of a small country off the coast of China known as Taiwan. The word boba came after a nickname for the Hong Kong actress Amy Yip. The drink consists of tapioca pearls and milk tea. Tapioca pearls are balls of tapioca starch boiled and submerged in a sweet solution to give it flavor. That simple. Bubble tea grew in popularity to an international level. It grew into a multi-billion dollar market[4] as it became so widely available. It has become such a widespread phenomenon that it has even reached the comfort of one's home. To learn more about how to make your boba go to the How-To page in our blog. The internet is such a great place that it even shows somebody who likes boba, how to make it.

This growth in popularity created an outburst of cafes to be opened in different places. Learn more about the cafes nearby in the Cafe Review section.

The bubble tea market has grown from street food to a multi-billion dollar market. The convenience of bubble tea came with the industrialization of tapioca pearls and other flavors such as Taro milk tea. The industrialization with tapioca pearls has come a long way since the start. The reason why it took a while for bubble tea to fully expand is that tapioca pearls were made out a cyanide outproducing plant known as cassava root plant. Nowadays, tapioca starch is chemically cleaned from any cyanide which means that it is safe to consume.[1]

As its popularity grew, subcultures revolving around boba and its cafes developed worldwide.
People began to hang out at bubble tea cafes, new flavors were being made, and even accessories and aesthetic items resulted. Just grab a drink and sit around with the people you cherish the most. The cafes create a chill atmosphere, which means that you can hang out with people and just enjoy the times.

Along with the expansion of social media, there came to be a much larger expansion of the bubble tea culture. With it came the new trends such as The Blind Straw Stab [2]which is where a person has their eyes "blindfolded" and the other friends move the drink as the person blindfolded tries to guess where the drink is. If they get it right then they win but if they miss... well ... then see for yourself.

In regards to ethnicity, boba has became something almost symbolic of the Asian community. As bubble tea grew in its popularity, it became something more than just a unique drink; its a token of Asian culture. We interviewed a few boba-baristas about their past experiences in the cafes that they worked in, and they all observed that the majority of the customers buying boba seemed to be Asian or Asian American. According to boba-barista, Michael Abregana, "Most of the customers I saw were Asian or were accompanied by other friends who might've been Asian." Furthermore, it is easy to infer that the Asian culture within the sales of bubble tea have spread across to non-Asian Americans as well. All around social media you can find sub-communities such as the Instagram page subtleasianfeels that have thousands of followers including many non-Asians interested memes and other posts about aspects of Asian culture, especially bubble tea. Bubble tea can most definitely be considered as a building block of the popularity of Asian culture in today's society.

Much of the community of boba and boba cafes are in the younger demographic as well. A friend and 'boba addict', Jaeren Dadivas stated, "The demographic of the boba customers were mostly younger people. Not children, but teenagers and millennials were mostly buying boba. Most customers ordered with the company of other people and sometimes groups of people." Younger people are also perceived as more 'tech-savvy' than the older generations which would make sense after seeing the many social media pages and trends about boba on the internet. The community that loves boba can be found on popular media such as YouTube, Twitter, and so much more. With its constantly growing popularity, it won't be hard to find people posting about their daily or occasional 'boba run', posts and news about cafes, and even posts about boba themed accessories.




Sources:
1.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3acGCQwpZOA
2https://gfycat.com/eachneighboringcow-bubble-tea-boba
3.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wm8QOwS0n5w
4.https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/industry-reports/bubble-tea-market-101564