my life with boba

Today, I would like to share with you the evolution of one of my great culinary loves: the wonder that is boba tea (otherwise known as bubble tea or pearl tea).

For those who may be uninitiated: boba tea originated in Taiwan and began to gain popularity in East Asia around the late-1990's (I think), soon crossing the Pacific and invading places with strong Asian influence. The "bobas," "bubbles," or "pearls" are little black balls of tapioca that sit at the bottom of a drink, usually either a milk tea or something like a fruit smoothie. You sip with an over-sized straw so the tapioca balls can come through, then chew and eat the bobas while you drink your beverage.

Thanks to my old Xanga, I can more or less pinpoint the exact date I tasted boba for the first time: June 22, 2004 (almost a decade ago!). I was a summer intern with the Baptist Student Ministries at the University of Texas in Arlington, working with international students on campus. One of the popular local haunts for the UTA student body (especially the East Asian internationals) was the Bethany Boba Tea Shop, which featured tasty Taiwanese cuisine and these then-novel drink creations. If you took the time to read my old blog post, you probably noticed my initial reaction to boba was fairly ambivalent - I didn't hate the stuff, but I wasn't particularly convinced that I liked it, either. Over time, though, I have come to call it one of my favorite drink genres. (Also, my commentary in the Xanga post about boba in East Asia being "their Starbucks" was a gross mischaracterization on my part. But then, I guess we're always learning.)

About half a year later I would find myself in Malaysia, studying abroad for a semester. While there, my love affair with boba continued to bloom, as the on-campus internet café featured boba drinks on their menu. It was there, in Southeast Asia, that I truly learned to love bubble tea, and the ambivalence I had initially displayed toward it finally faded away.

Upon my return to the United States and my final two years at Howard Payne, I had a few years of boba withdrawal. Shockingly, there isn't much of a market for boba in Brown County, Texas, and when I was home in the Houston area I never had much occasion or opportunity to look for it. Ironically, when I spent the summer of 2006 in China, and I don't recall drinking boba tea at any point while I was there. Maybe I just don't remember because it felt natural in that setting.

I moved to the Los Angeles area in 2007, and suddenly boba was much more readily accessible. When I went to the LA Public Library to study or check out books, I would always grab a boba tea from their café. When going to hang out with friends, a common destination would be a tea shop in Alhambra or San Gabriel that served the drinks. My wife would finally introduce me to one of my favorite boba shops of all time: cha for Tea in Long Beach. I began to take the drinks for granted.

Then, last July, we moved to Brigham City, Utah. Unsurprisingly  there's about as much of a market for bubble tea here as there was in Brownwood. What was a boba-lover to do??

Fast forward a couple months into our new residency in Utah, and one rainy evening we found ourselves moseying down 25th Street in Ogden, a larger city about 15-20 minutes south of where we live. When we got about two or three businesses from the end of the street, a storefront caught my eye:

That's right - the boba invasion had even reached Utah! We had happily discovered Ogden's Pearl Milk Tea Club. We went inside and I had my fill of the tapioca goodness.

Since then we've returned to Pearl many a time, almost weekly when we can make it. And not only have we discovered a place that makes wonderful boba drinks, we've discovered a place where the owner greeted us like old friends the first time we walked in, where we've found ourselves engrossed in a card game with a collection of people we don't know, where we're starting to recognize familiar faces on repeat trips and we're getting to know fellow pearl tea enthusiasts.

So not only has my love for boba tea found an outlet, but we've found a new slice of community as well. That sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

In conclusion: boba is awesome and you should try it. That is all.