While stories of type and variety of tea go back hundreds of years, sometimes even thousands, the story of bubble tea actually goes back to the ancient, mythical, and mysterious era of the 1980s…

The History of Bubble Tea 

When it comes to tea, the exact origins always seem to be steeped (hah!) in some mystery, often with multiple locations, originators, and backstories involved. The same goes for bubble tea. The two competing claims are from the Hanlin Tea room in Tainan, Taiwan, and the Chun Shui Tang tearoom in Taichung, Taiwan which we had the pleasure of visiting on our trip to Taiwan.

Hanlin’s story

According to Hanlin Tea Room, back in 1986, Tu Tsong-He who was the teahouse owner at the time invented the drink. He saw tapioca balls in the Ya Mu Liao market and decided to add them to black milk tea. This was the “pearl tea” genesis, or at least it was according to Hanlin!

The Hanlin Tea Room then switched from white to black tea pearls that are mixed with brown sugar and honey. However, the option for black or white pearls is still available in some places today.

Chun Shui Tang’s story

The tea room’s founder, Liu Han-Chieh claims he first started serving Chinese tea cold after visiting Japan and witnessing the famous Japanese iced, cold brew, and Dutch brew coffee back in the 80s. This novel tea style resulted in some new locales opening as chains under the teahouse’s umbrella. But the real inventor is credited as Lin Hsiu Hui, who was the product development manager at the teahouse.

In 1988, while attending a supposedly boring meeting, she decided to dump her fen yuan, which are the sweet confectionary tapioca balls into her cold tea. The result was a hit and became a wildly popular drink at the teahouse and the rest of Taiwan. 

As both stories go, whoever the inventor is, the place of origin is certainly in Taiwan and certainly sometime in the mid-80s. After gaining fame in Taiwan, the drink exploded in popularity in the 90s. 

First in southern China, Hong Kong, and Southeast Asia where you’ll now find a Gong Cha on every corner. The cold tea along with the sweet pearls made the perfect drink to enjoy in the often hot and humid climate of these regions. 

Milk tea had already been a popular drink in these areas, too. So adding some ice and sweet chewiness just made a popular drink option even more beloved. Next, bubble tea became a hit in other parts of Asia, then, the world, first making landfall in many countries outside Asia via Asian immigrant and diaspora communities. 

Today, one can find bubble tea all over the world and in many different venues. The beverage is also known as pearl milk tea, bubble milk tea, and boba tea. The tea of choice was originally black tea as it is commonly used in milk tea. However green and Oolong varieties can be found, too!

And in addition to the original iced milk tea with the chewy and delicious pearls, there are also hot and frappe style bubble teas that offer other options of ingredients and accoutrements to really up the sweet and tasty factor!

Read More: What is a Japanese Tea Ceremony & How to Do it At Home

How to Make Bubble Tea at Home

So now that your interests in this novel and delectable drink have been piqued, you may want to try your hand at making some at home and it couldn’t be easier/

What you need to make bubble tea

• Tapioca pearls: You can get frozen bags of these, just make sure to follow their thawing and preparation instructions or bags from most Asian convenience stores. I like using these quick cook ones which take about five minutes of boiling to be perfect.
• Sweetener: Brown sugar, black sugar and honey are great options to sweeten the pearls
• Black tea (feel free to swap out for your tea of choice, but black tea is the original tea used in bubble tea)
• Filtered or purified water
• Milk (preferably thicker milk or half & half)
• Ice (although many also like it hot)
• Extra-wide straws or a spoon (for drinking the tapioca pearls)

Bubble Tea Recipe

1. First, prepare your tapioca pearls by following their thawing and boiling instructions as per their packaging

2. Prepare your syrup for the tapioca pearls by adding 1/4 cup of hot water to 1/4 cups of brown sugar. Stir until the sugar granules have all dissolved. I sometimes just like to drop some honey on them (which also makes for a tasty dessert)

3. Now it is time to brew your tea! Because we want cold tea for this chilly drink, brew your tea ahead of time or set it to cool someplace it will chill swiftly. Ideally, strong black tea is used, so 2-4 teabags are used. This will be very bitter so feel free to start with just 2 teabags of black tea the first time. Use less water so the flavour is strong and not watery when added with the other ingredients!

4. Now that all your ingredients have cooled, add the pearls and their sugar syrup to the bottom of your cup. 

5. Now add some ice and your cold tea. If you prefer it hot then you can just put your freshly cooked tea in

6. Top it all off with some rich and creamy milk and feel free to give the whole thing a few stirs to mix your ingredients together.

7. Finally, enjoy your delicious and frosty tea treat! If you have extra-wide straws, use these, otherwise, you can use a spoon to scoop the pearls out. Or commit the sacrilege of throwing them all out!

Tip: For a richer bubble tea, I sometimes brew the tea in milk to make it more of a latte style.

Bubble tea anytime

 A rich, silky, and satisfyingly chewy bubble tea is great at any time of day and on any occasion. While certainly a staple of hot weather, try a hot variation for when the weather cools off a bit. Your bubble tea, your way. And as you enjoy your bubble tea feel free to thank either Hanlin Tea Room or Chun Shui Tang tearoom. Or both, for that matter!

Read More: 11 Types of Japanese Tea (and How to Brew)

While you can explore the city yourself, try out the incredible Taipei street food that’s a staple of the city, and discover your own favourite local restaurant, a great option is taking a Taipei food tour. If you’re wondering what to eat in Taipei, and you want to try the best Taiwanese food available, in the city, consider taking a food tour.

Wondering What to Eat in Taipei?

Our first food tour was in Osaka, Japan. The experience proved to be the most exciting and detailed way of getting to know the culture of the city quickly, and so we have vowed to include a food tour (or a cooking class like the one we did in Seoul) in every new city we visit.

Our latest stop: the food capital of Asia, Taipei. It goes without saying the food in Taipei is fantastic, with night markets to explore and tiny eateries just waiting to be discovered, it’s a dream stop on the culinary trail. There are even plenty of options for vegetarians which isn’t always easy in Asia.

We were over the moon to have booked a tour with Taipei Eats. Their tours all started when food-obsessed founders Mike Lee and Tina Fong returned to Taiwan (after years living abroad) and rediscovered the culinary masterworks of their homeland. Find out why we loved them, what to eat in Taipei, and some local Taiwanese food spots to visit on your own Taipei trip below. This is how you find the best Taiwanese food around.

They currently offer two tours: the Dadocheng historical tour (which we chose) or the Xinyi tour which explores the backstreets near the more modern area behind the Taipei 101 building.

The Best Taiwanese Food in Taipei

The Taipei Eats tour begins at Daqiaotou Station, exit 1. From here you walk for roughly three hours and stop at eight or nine different inconspicuous, bustling Taiwanese restaurants and street food carts to sample the local cuisine. Your guide (ours was the charming and informative Tina) will do all the talking and provide you with the history of not only the food you eat but also the stores you eat at, and even the areas you wander through.

As a passionate foodie, Tina was so knowledgeable about every dish we tried; how the food in Taiwan is prepared, what nutritional properties it has, and what kinds of people typically enjoy it.

Most of the food you’ll sample includes noodles, rice, pork, sauces/spices, and fried things. But the thousand-and-one ways in which these staples of Taiwanese cuisine are prepared and presented will leave your head spinning. The creativity on show in these little backstreets is inspiring, to say the least.

So many of the stores you’ll stop at have stood with doors wide open for generations, many of them having originally opened up to 150 years ago.

The stories of these people are truly fascinating; from the Chinese who migrated to Taiwan and brought their local fish-ball dumplings with them, to the tea shop which originally installed special shutters as a defence against actual pirates in the 19^th century.

You’ll also wander through the fascinating DiHua Street in the Dadochaeng area. Constructed in the 1850s, it’s the oldest street in Taipei, and some sections still exist from the rule of the Dutch during the mid-seventeenth century.

It’s an area filled with history, fine Taiwanese foods, and medicine shops which Tina showed us around, filling our heads with fantastic history and trivia. You’ll even visit a local Taoist temple and try some of the delicious tea they offer there.

A highlight of this particular tour was the (optional) sampling of the betel (pronounced like beetle) nut. These are sold by street vendors so inconspicuous the average traveller would take little notice at all. But, thanks to Tina, we stopped and received a history lesson about the details of these fascinating nuts which originated in Southeast Asia and are chewed like tobacco, providing a similar high and buzz of energy.

Nowadays, they are typically consumed one after another by local taxi drivers, but we opted to try some for ourselves. The sensation is very similar to that of trying your first cigarette.

Why take a Taiwanese food tour?

The real selling point of this food tour is a way for tourists and travellers to sample the real Taipei, to eat as the locals eat, to understand what makes up the daily routines and the traditions of so many local people. There’s also no better way to discover and experience the best Taiwanese food.

Wandering through a city or town for a few days, just as a ghost would, can be a very hollow experience, but to sit at the side of the street and sample some fresh noodles and bitter tea as any local does on their way home from work is a truly humbling and enlightening experience.

There really is no other way to truly dig deep into a city’s culture than through its cuisine. We can take all the photos and visit all the museums we like, but if we spend just a single morning sampling the local delicacies lining its quiet backstreets, we are provided with so much.

The best Taiwanese food is rich in history, flavour, tradition, skill, and method. Much of the food is recognisable as Chinese and sometimes Japanese, but Taiwan has made it their own; like a Greatest Hits of East Asian cuisine.

My mother used to say that the quickest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, and since I never really understood what she meant by that I’m going to change it: the quickest way to the heart of a country is through its food. And Taiwan has a big, delicious heart; the easiest way to really get to know this heart is with Taipei Eats.

What to Eat in Taipei: Our Top Recommendations

Breakfast in Taipei

Fu Hang Soy Milk 阜杭豆漿 — Both their hou bing (thick bread) and shao bing (flat bread) have cult-like followings making the queue ridiculously long. You can enjoy them stuffed with scrambled eggs and Chinese fried donut stick.

Their soy milk is one of the best in Taipei. You can order it hot or cold, sweet or unsweetened, or savory- with vinegar, dried shrimp peels, cilantro, preserved vegetables, and sesame oil. Also, do not go there without trying the sweet xiao bing- a small, hot, flaky pastry with sugary syrup oozing in the middle.

Be prepared for a long wait, especially in the weekends. Though we find the wait actually gets shorter near closing time around noon. This is absolutely one of the best places to eat in Taipei.

Address:  No. 108, Zhongxiao E. Rd., Sec. 1 (Level two of the indoor market right by exit 5)
MRT: Shandao station
Hours: 5:30am-12:30pm, closed on Mondays.

Lunch in Taipei

Ding Tai Fung 鼎泰豐 —The original location.

Now a worldwide institution, this is the original Taiwanese restaurant that sparked the obsession. Although there are multiple locations, people agree the original location is still the tastiest. Head there around 11:30 AM if you want to avoid long lines. It’s no secret that Ding Tai Fung represents some of the very best Taiwanese food available.

Address: 106台北市大安區信義路二段194號 // Xinyi Rd. Sec.2, No. 194
MRT: Dongmen Exit 5 (Red/ Yellow line)
Hours: 10am-9pm during the week and 9am-9pm on the weekends

Dinner in Taipei

Make sure you catch one of the local Taiwanese markets for dinner one evening or just for dessert after. For a sit-down meal, we recommend:

Shi Ji Beef Noodles 史記正宗牛肉麵 — We’re still dreaming about the beef noodles of Taiwan, Shi Ji are known for their white broth-based beef noodles. The milky broth is achieved by simmering the broth for hours and hours. If you’re still searching for the best Taiwanese food, this is it.

Address: 台北市中山區民生東路二段60號 // 104, Taipei City, Zhongshan District, Section 2, Minsheng East Road, 60號
MRT: Xintian Temple station
Hours: 11:30am-3pm, 5:30pm-9pm