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Let's bubble it up!

Last Updated 30 November 2016, 19:49 IST

Cristina Re once said ‘a cup of tea is an excuse to share great thoughts with great minds’. With different varieties of this global favourite hitting the stands, tea is now as much a headline-maker as a conversation starter. The latest in this list is the craze for bubble tea.

Also known as pearl milk tea, boba milk tea or simply boba, bubble tea is a Taiwanese tea-based drink invented in the 1980s. Thanks to globalisation, the exotic tea has made its way to the city and is making heads turn among the food lovers. The recipe contains a tea-based mixture that is mixed with either chewy tapioca balls or fruit jellies. There are also versions where it is ice-blended, resulting in a slushy consistency, and mixed with fruits or syrup.

Khusboo Thacker, an assistant manager, often visits ‘Big Straw’ on her way back home from work for her dosage of bubble tea. She says, “I travel from Koramangala to Mekhri Circle every day and this tea is the refreshment I need to survive the traffic. I even take some home for my family; my dog loves it too!”

Her favourite flavour is the ‘Tropical blast’. “It has a sort of iced tea flavour but the bubbles added to it is what makes it interesting. The tapioca balls are my favourite, although the fruit jellies are also not too bad. It’s a perfect drink when one wants to just chill out and relax. The longest I have gone without having it is two weeks — I think I will make a visit very soon to make up for it!” she adds.

Food blogger Naveen Suresh usually gets his bubble tea from ‘Smacznego’ in
Banashankari.

He says, “I love the mango and strawberry bubble tea. I do prefer the fruit jellies over the tapioca balls. It would have been interesting if they could have infused some aromatic edible flowers to take it to the next level.” He hopes that this exotic drink will become available in more places so that everyone can consume it. He shares, “While bubble tea could become somewhat of a gastronomic revolution for the younger lot, it will still be seen as a fancy invention by the older generation. However, I don’t think true tea lovers will enjoy this drink that much.”

Wanting to take the quali‘tea’ to another level is Kavita Mathur, the co-founder at ‘Tea Trails’, who wants to bring in tea flavours from across the globe and incorporate it into their menu. She says, “Even though we have over 45 types of tea in the menu, bubble tea made an exceptional choice. Since the youngsters today are well travelled, it made sense to add something globally known to the menu.”

Their bubble tea was received well by the customers. Keeping the Japanese green tea as the base, they offer two fruit-filled and one tapioca boba drink. “As we have a bubble tea festival going in the restaurant, we have added ‘Chocolate tapioca bubble tea’, a vegan drink, to the menu. It’s a unique drink that everyone can have and is quite filling as well. After all, tea does make everything better,” says Kavita.

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(Published 30 November 2016, 13:18 IST)

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