Bubble tea is, without a doubt, the most ridiculous beverage ever created (well except maybe for bottled water) and, yet, I find myself drinking them often. Bubble tea consists of a healthy tea infused with a super sweet flavor and slightly smaller-than-marble-sized balls of tapioca. This brightly colored drink started in the 1980’s in Taiwan and I picture it being popular with the type of teenager that is into raves, furry animal-shaped backpacks, and Japanese anime.
The tea is drunk through a super fat (and always neon colored) straw in order to suck up the tapioca. Sucking up the tapioca balls, rolling them around in your mouth, and then chewing them somehow taps into that “playing with your food is cool” trait that is common with small children and, apparently, 29-year old guys like myself. The tapioca balls taste slimy, which, yes, technically is not a flavor but still is really the best way to describe it.
In San Francisco’s Chinatown (the largest in North America) I wander into a shop that sells about 400 varieties of bubble tea. I order a Kumquat-Lime and the young girl behind the counter doesn’t laugh at me.
