National Bubble Tea Day 2023: Date, History, Facts, Activities

National Bubble Tea Day on April 30 has only been observed for a brief period of time, but we are brimming with excitement at the mere thought of celebrating this peculiar beverage. Bubble tea enthusiasts cannot get enough of the creamy, sweet tea beverage topped with tapioca spheres that resemble floating pearls. The addition of National Bubble Tea Day to the calendar legitimises both the Taiwanese-origin beverage and its fashionable pop culture following.

The background of National Bubble Tea Day

In the 1980s, teahouses began selling beverages topped with doughy black and white tapioca balls approximating bubbles. At the time, shaken tea and milk drinks were already popular fare in Taiwan’s night markets. “Bubble tea,” also known as “boba” or “pearl tea,” attracted a cult-like fascination that swiftly became a part of Taiwanese youth pop culture and rapidly spread from Taiwan to the rest of Asia.

Two tearooms in Taiwan assert that they were the first to add tapioca balls dubbed “pearls” to the popular foamy tea and milk drinks enjoyed by night market crowds.

In the 1980s, while travelling in Japan, the proprietor of the Chun Shui Tang tea room in Taichung, Taiwan began serving cold Chinese tea after observing the popularity of cold coffee. Owner Liu Han-Chieh attributes the invention of bubble tea to his teahouse’s product development manager, Lin Hsiu Hui. During a meeting in 1988, while playing with her glass of iced tea, she spilled some custard with tapioca balls into her glass. The resulting beverage was such a success with other guests that it was added to the menu of the tearoom, much to the delight of customers.

The proprietor of the Hanlin Tea Room in Tainan, Taiwan, Tu Tsong, asserts that he invented “pearl tea” in 1986. The white tapioca spheres that resembled pearls in the Ya Mu Liao day market inspired him. Some of the “pearls” were added to chilled tea, resulting in the first “pearl tea.” When he added brown sugar to his recipe for tapioca pearls, the pearls became black. He started serving his pearl tea with both black and white pearls, much to his customers’ delight.

Regardless of who invented the first delectable sweet milk tea beverage with tapioca “pearls” floating playfully atop the foam, some claim that bubble tea has become Taiwan’s most recognisable export of the twenty-first century. Taiwanese students eventually introduced bubble tea to university and college campus cafés on the west coast of the United States in the 1990s. Initially, the drink was only available at local Asian establishments. But Asian American youth in those areas soon identified with “boba” as they preferred to call it, and it became an iconic meme for Asian students seeking cultural familiarity while studying abroad. As a result of boba’s increasing popularity, boba shops have become the Asian American equivalent of American coffee shops as community gathering spaces.

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Activities associated with National Bubble Tea Day

Blow Bubbles……

while obviously sipping bubble tea. This is for you if you are not a fan of bubble tea because you can consume whatever you want and still blow bubbles. Coffee, tea, and fizz! Who is not intrigued by bubbles?

Customise your own Bubble Tea

Today is a good time to experiment with homebrew if you find bubble tea sold in teahouses and shops to be too saccharine or if you are particular about ingredients. The benefit of preparing bubble tea at home is that it is incredibly simple to prepare. Freshly brewed tea, milk, a sweetener, typically sugar or honey, ice, and tapioca pearls comprise the fundamental bubble tea recipe. Recipes online are profuse. Because the tea will be diluted with milk and ice crystals, it is important to choose a flavorful, robust tea.

Observe “Boba Life 2: Pearls Gone Wild”

Now that you’ve brewed a delicious batch of bubble tea to celebrate this trendy, sensational beverage, presumably enough for friends to enjoy as well, you may be wondering, “What now?” We recommend going all-in on bubble tea culture and watching “Boba Life 2: Pearls Gone Wild,” an online video promoting Taiwanese bubble tea culture. If you search social media sites, we’re sure you’ll find more examples similar to this one.

5 FACTS ABOUT THESE “BUBBLES” OF PEARLY BOBA.

The chewy dough balls dubbed “pearls” that float in your boba like bubbles are a type of fen yuan, a tapioca-based pastry dough commonly used in Taiwanese desserts since the 1950s. Historically, sweet potatoes were used to make Fen yuan.

Tapioca is a cassava-derived carbohydrate used as a thickening agent in place of flour and cornflour, which are more prevalent in the United States.

To create “pearls,” tapioca is first milled into a fine, cornstarch-like flour, which is then combined with boiling water, kneaded, cut, and rolled into various spherical shapes.

Wet tapioca spheres are traditionally referred to as “pearls” because they appear almost transparent and glossy. When vendors began using brown sugar to produce fen yuan “pearls,” the pearls acquired a dark ebony hue.

In the United States, there is typically a geographical divide regarding the appellation of Taiwan’s iconic beverage. People on the west coast refer to the beverage as “boba,” whereas those on the east coast name it “bubble tea.” The majority of Taiwanese now refer to the ubiquitous beverage as “pearl milk tea.”

NATIONAL BUBBLE TEA DAY DATES

Year	Date	Day
2023	April 30	Sunday
2024	April 30	Tuesday
2025	April 30	Wednesday
2026	April 30	Thursday
2027	April 30	Friday