Bubble tea and Asian affinity
From just a couple of tea shops in Taiwan to a multi billion dollar industry, bubble tea has exploded into a worldwide phenomenon, and one that many Asians around the world have an affinity with. In Australia, we’ve seen a boom in the past few years, with more international chains popping up, as well as many smaller businesses trying to carve out their own niche market within the industry.
If we had to define bubble tea (or boba, or pearl milk tea), the most basic drink is tea, mixed with a creamer or fresh milk, sweetened and then shaken with ice, and poured over cooked balls of tapioca flour. There are many variations, from fruit teas without any creamer to other toppings like herbal jelly and popping pearls, but they’re all essentially competing in the same market.
So why the Asian affinity? Firstly, it originated in Asia. More specifically, Taiwan. In the 1980’s, one shop combined the idea of tea served cold with a typical taiwanese dessert consisting of tapioca pudding, and suddenly it’s the hottest drink in town.
Secondly, as you have already noticed, it’s almost an evolution of things that are already traditionally East Asian. The use of brewed teas has a long history in many East Asian cultures, and tapioca balls have previously been used in desserts like sago pudding. It’s this new combination of the two that brought these ingredients from something traditional to something modern and appealing.
In Australia, we saw the beginning of the bubble tea (or pearl milk tea as we called it here) industry in the early 2000’s. Local chains and a couple of international ones appeared, but the actual product wasn’t the most amazing.
“I like to call this the dark ages of bubble tea because what we had was just water and then they put in tea powder and creamer,” says bubble tea blogger Zhi Weng Chua. “You can’t really call it tea - it’s like tea-flavoured water.”
Despite the poor quality of the product itself, Asians flocked to bubble tea shops to adopt this new, cool drink as their own. I say Asians fairly loosely, but it definitely had an affinity to minorities over the white population. There was a sense of familiarity with the ingredients, and it was one of the few cool things that young Asian kids could identify with.
Since then, we’ve seen more and more chains open up in Australia - Chatime, Gong Cha, CoCo, and Share Tea to name a few. Far from being the fad many thought it would be, it has done just the opposite - it has grown even bigger than it was when it first boomed. In 2016, the bubble tea industry was valued at almost 2 billion dollars and is still growing. And with more competition comes more creativity.
“There’s a bigger focus on aesthetics, so I think it’s part of the culture today how we want to show people our lives,” says Chua.
Coupled with a bigger influx of East Asian migrants to Australia, and a cultural shift towards a foodie culture where it’s not just about good food, but it’s about the most shareable photos of products and jumping on the latest food craze, and you have the modern bubble tea market. Brown sugar swirls on the outside, colour gradients in the fruit drinks, a little sprinkle of ‘soil’ and a sprig of mint on top, and fancier cups and carrying apparatuses, bubble tea is taking full advantage of the snap-and-share generation.
But surprisingly when people outside of bubble tea shops were asked why they were there, Instagram wasn’t their first reason for being there.
“Bubble tea is more of a treat for myself,” one said. “It’s kind of healthy I think. It’s tea you know, tea is health,” said another. “It’s a social thing - like getting a coffee for Asian people,” said another.
So there are many reasons why people say they get bubble tea. Yet it’s still more of an Asian drink - one that we choose to get over other drinks. After all, there are other alternatives to a treat, or a healthy drink, or a way to catch up with a friend. So why bubble tea?
“We want to be close to Asian culture, so I think bubble tea stores have become like cafes for Europeans, where it’s a way for us to try to connect to our asian culture,” Explains Chua. “Going to a bubble tea store, we feel like in that small way, we’re embracing our culture just that little bit.”
Because of the inherent ‘Asiannes’ of bubble tea, it is, in a way, how we can feel ‘Asian’ and connected to our roots. Coupled with its cool Asian factor, bubble tea is strangely connected to our identity as Asians in a Western country. When we’re told our whole lives that the Asian part of us isn’t cool, being able to embrace something that is cool and is uniquely Asian feels like a bit of a unicorn. It’s ours, and it’s awesome. And whilst the plethora of variations may not stick around forever, we’re probably going to see the category as a whole stick around. At least for some time.
Listen to the Shoes Off episode on bubble tea here.
