Bubble tea, also known as boba tea or pearl milk tea, is a tea-based drink typically made with brewed tea, milk or other dairy products, sweetener, and chewy tapioca pearls or the ‘bubbles’
The brewed tea can be black, green, oolong, or any other kind of tea, and the milk can be dairy, non-dairy, or even fruit juice. Even the pearls can be flavoured with various syrups or natural ingredients like honey
Google Doodle created an interactive game on making bubble tea to mark the third anniversary of the launch of the official boba tea emoji on January 29, 2020
The Google Doodle game features Taiwan’s indigenous Formosan Mountain Dog and some Google Doodle characters and allows players to run a boba tea shop and create their own bubble tea combinations for their customers
Bubble tea originated in the city of T'ai-nan, Taiwan, in the ‘80s. Taiwanese immigrants brought it to the US in the 1990s, initially in California through areas like Los Angeles, but has likewise spread to other countries with a large East Asian diasporic population
While boba tea has been popular in Asia since the 1980s, it has grown in popularity over the years across the world especially with millennials and Gen Z forming a large consumer base. In 2020, a market research report from Fortune Business Insights estimated that the bubble tea industry was worth over $3 billion
There are a variety of different types of bubble tea, including classic milk tea, brown sugar milk tea, matcha milk tea, taro milk tea, strawberry fruit tea, passionfruit tea, Thai tea, jasmine milk tea, honeydew milk tea, lychee tea, mango milk tea, green milk tea, strawberry milk tea, and taro milk tea
India has also joined the craze for bubble tea with franchises like Dr. Bubbles, standalone cafes and even home cooks and young entrepreneurs brewing boba tea for the growing consumer base
Produced by: Prashanti Moktan