Today, Google is celebrating the popularity of bubble tea across the globe through an adorable and interactive doodle. Bubble tea, also known as boba tea and pearl milk tea is a non-alcoholic, non-carbonated cold tea beverage.
The name comes from the jelly-like appearance of the tapioca pearls that look like bubbles in the drink. The beverage gained a lot of popularity during the Covid-19 pandemic, especially among Gen-Z and millennials.
Google has selected January 29 to celebrate bubble tea, as on this day in 2020, it was announced that the iconic drink would be given its own emoji.
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To celebrate the milky and tangy beverage, Google has come up with a fun, interactive doodle that allows netizens to create their own milk tea concoctions and run their own shop. All users need to do is click on the doodle and an animation will start playing on the screen. In the interactive doodle, netizens are playing as a Formosan Mountain Dog who operates a bubble tea stand in the midst of a rainy forest. The process of making tea in the game is straightforward, as users simply need to fill the cup with each ingredient like milk and the boba balls, to reach a certain line.
All in all, players will need to fill five orders before closing shop for the day, each progressively harder than the last. After each drink is completed, the customers line up their straws and poke through the lid in a satisfying way.
”Satisfy your craving and make a yummy cup of bubble tea in today’s interactive Doodle, which features Taiwan’s indigenous Formosan Mountain Dog as well as a crew of familiar Doodle characters!” the doodle page reads.
Explaining the origins of the beverage, Google wrote on its Doodle page, “This Taiwanese drink started as a local treat and has exploded in popularity over the last few decades. Bubble tea has its roots in traditional Taiwanese tea culture which dates back as early as the 17th century. However, it wasn’t until the 1980s that the bubble tea as we know it today was invented.”
It further added, “As waves of Taiwanese immigrants over the past few decades brought this drink overseas, innovation on the original bubble tea continues. Shops around the world are still experimenting with new flavors, additions, and mixtures. Traditional tearooms across Asia have also joined in on the boba craze, and the trend has reached countries like Singapore, Japan, South Korea, and more!”
Frequently Asked Questions
What Is Bubble Tea?
Bubble tea is a Taiwanese recipe made by blending tea with milk, fruit and fruit juices, then adding tasty tapioca pearls and shaking vigorously.
All the rage in the UK, bubble tea has actually been a hot (or cold!) favourite in countries like China since the 1980s.
What Are the Bubbles?
An incredibly unique-looking beverage, Bubble tea is a Taiwanese recipe made by blending a tea base with milk, fruit and fruit juices, then adding the signature “bubbles” – yummy tapioca pearls that sit at the bottom.
These delicious fruit or tea infusions can be served either piping hot or iced cold, making a tasty and ever-so-quirky drink and snack. Bubble tea is served in see-through cups with a fat straw so that – as you sip – the tapioca balls (also known as “pearls” or “boba”) come shooting up and can be chewed as you swallow down the delicious liquid. It’s called bubble tea both because of the tapioca balls, and the floating “bubbles” created by the vigorous shaking involved in its blending.
Its quirky look is part of what’s made it an Instagram sensation, with influencers the world over posing with their bubble tea.
Who Invented Bubble Tea?
There is no documented evidence about the invention of bubble tea, but as with many teas, there is a story around it! Rumour has it that the blend first appeared in Asia in the 1980s. Just visit Taiwan or Hong Kong and you can’t help but notice the unique bubble teashops on every corner.
Taiwanese tea stands became very popular in the 1980s as a post-work pick me up and place to hang out.This created a certain competitive atmosphere in the tea market, and merchants started searching for and creating ever more inventive variations on their teas and beverages.
It is said that a teahouse called Chun Shui Tang in Taichung began serving Chinese tea cold – having adopted the idea from Japanese-style iced coffee. Just a few years later, Chun Shui’s product development manager, one Ms. Lin Hsiu Hui was bored at a staff meeting. On the spur of the moment, she decided to dump her Taiwanese dessert called fen yuan—a sweetened tapioca pudding—into her Assam iced tea and drink it.
It was so good that they decided to add it to the menu, where it soon became the franchise’s top-selling product. Soon after seeing the success of this drink at one teahouse, concessions all over Taiwan started adding tapioca pearls and different fruit flavours to their iced teas, and so began bubble tea as we now know it!
From Taiwan, its popularity has spread throughout China, Australia, the United States, and now right here in the UK.
What’s It Like to Drink?
Tapioca pearls, which sit at the bottom of the cup have a chewy consistency somewhere between jelly and chewing gum. You can get different flavoured pearls and they are usually black, but sometimes white or transparent, making the drink look rather similar to a passionfruit.
What Does Bubble Tea Taste Like?
A sweet, cool refreshing and really delicious treat. It comes in as many flavours as there are teas and fruits, so you can pick and choose.
Bubble Tea Recipe
For some bubble tea making inspiration, check out the Recipe here
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