​【原声视界】Day 99 奶茶的秘密

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Bubble tea is a Taiwanese tea-based drink invented in Taichung in the 1980s. So the story goes, Lin Xiu Hui got bored during a meeting and poured her tapioca dessert into her tea — and it turned out delicious. Nothing might've come of it if Lin Xiu Hui wasn't already the product development manager for Chun Shui Tang teahouse, but she was. And that's what kicked off this trend. Even though Lin Xiu Hui first created bubble tea by adding tapioca balls into her tea, the "bubble" in bubble tea actually refers to the oxygen pockets formed by shaking the tea.

It's likely that these same bubbles formed when she first poured her tapioca dessert into her tea during that fateful  boring meeting when she invented the stuff. This is also why you can get bubble tea without any tapioca. Milk tea, pearl tea, tapioca tea, boba tea, and foam milk tea are a few of the variations available to suit your taste palette. Evolution of tapioca size. The size of the tapioca in bubble tea can also vary. This explains a few of the different names for the tea.

Pearl tea refers to the original bubble tea with smaller tapioca “pearls." Boba tea, on the other hand, refers to the bubble tea with larger pearls. Because the small pearls are typically used in desserts like the one Lin Xiu Hui poured into her tea in the 1980s, we might say that small pearls are the traditional style for bubble tea, though now almost all shops use the larger boba.

If you want something chewy in your bubble tea, but don't like tapioca, that's also not a problem! Other options for the balls include grass, konjac, or coconut jellies. You can also get popping boba, which is made from a seaweed extract with fruit juice flavoring inside that pops open once you bite into it. Some shops even offer puddings or beans as a tapioca-alternative.

Meanwhile, you may have mostly had bubble tea in its cold form, but drinkers aren’t limited to what has become known as the traditional style. If you're craving bubble tea in the freezing winter, you can find it available in hot varieties to help you warm up. If you like it cold, but you're looking for something a little thicker, it's also available as a smoothie.