Why do they call it boba

Bin Chen, founder of the popular boba chain, Boba Guys, says that bubble tea has ballooned in popularity because it's lighter, sweeter, and more fun than your average tea, thanks to the tapioca balls. The sheer number of choices, too, he adds, has also always been appealing to people.

In Taiwan, boba is a staple of the night markets, which encompass hundreds of food stalls where everyone congregates after work for groceries and snacks. Food trends come and go in these stalls, but according to Chen, boba has become a mainstay.

Starting in the '90s boba also became a huge craze in the U. The popularity of boba tea grew even more when places like Boba Guys opened up, offering high-quality teas, real milk, and a comfortable, casual atmosphere. Chen also theorizes that as drinks like aloe juice and coconut water, both of which can have jellied remnants in them, have risen to prominence, "people are becoming more used to having chewy bits in their drinks. Still, he's surprised that bubble tea has managed to capture the imaginations of so many American consumers in such a relatively short period of time.

He compares it to sushi, starting as a foreign tradition but eventually being absorbed fully into American food culture. Fortunately, Chen's bet on tapioca balls paid off, and given the last decade, it's likely that the trend will only continue to spread across the globe.

Share this —. Follow today. More Brands. By Julie Pennell. What is boba or bubble tea? View this post on Instagram. Rice pudding is smoother than tapioca pudding because the rice grains are soft when cooked while tapioca has a rubbery texture. The naturally-occurring sodium content is low, making this a safe food to consume if you have high blood pressure. It has no bad fat or cholesterol, so you can stock up on healthy carbs.

So is tapioca actually vegan? Tapioca is a starch that is produced from the cassava plant. It can take many forms, including powder, balls and flakes, but all forms are plant-based. Therefore, it is perfectly acceptable for those eating a vegan diet.

My friend Bill Perkins noticed an absence of Minute Tapioca on grocery shelves this spring and brought it to my attention. Boba are basically all carbs — they lack any minerals or vitamins and contain no fiber. One bubble tea can contain as much as 50 grams of sugar and close to calories. While one bubble tea here and there is unlikely to have severe effects on your health, it should absolutely not be consumed on a daily basis.

Begin typing your search term above and press enter to search. Press ESC to cancel. This reference to bubbles has arisen by misinterpretation or a misunderstanding as to what the actual drink is, and its origin. Boba tea is just that, large pearls of tapioca as the original creation intended. Educate rather than pacify. So hop off the box ok? And to complain about how words change depending on regional use is to blindly misunderstand how dialects naturally form over time and by extension new languages.

Mike here even so graciously suggested the Taiwanese refer to it as bubble tea when using English and they invented it so maybe the correct way to go about it is to call it bubble tea or bo ba nai cha but not a butchering of both. Hi Jason, thanks for your comment. I can see how being from LA will make you feel so strongly about calling it Boba!

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