the bobaspot community, for boba lovers everywhere (original) (raw)

Bubble Tea is the catch-all name for endless unusual names of this drink such as: tapioca pearl drink, tapioca ball drink, pearl shake, pearl tea, black pearl tea, big pearl, boba tea, boba ice tea, boba nai cha, milk tea, bubble drink, zhen zhu nai cha, momi, momi milk tea, QQ, BBT, PT, and possibly many other names....

...and now... we have something new to add to the list!: boolbooley! (urdu/hindi for 'bubbles')

i learnt about bubble tea over the internet: i had always been a fan of
traditional south asian chai and ice tea, and when i read about a new drink from taiwan that was a growing popularity amongst people all over the world, i knew i just had to try it! but the problem remained that bubble tea had never been heard of here - the people who did drink tea stuck to chai, and even most who had heard of tea - disliked it. we were locked away from the bubble tea craze.

months went by, and investment by china and the philippines grew in the U.A.E. and projects such as dragon mart began to emerge. more south east-asian and east asian firms opened their stores here as the city developed.

sometime during the beginning of 2005, my brother and i were strolling in a mall - and a flashing stand caught my eye. it read "Bubble Tea" in big, neon letters and without a second thought, i grabbed his arm and said, "let's try it!". because my brother liked chai, he was partial to try it. two filipino women greeted us and handed us a menu to choose from (red tea, green tea and milk tea) - we both chose peach green tea with tapioca. heistant at first as the round-shaped-gummy-tasting balls were a bit intimidating, but once we sat down and started to drink: oh boy, addicting!

and we've been hooked ever since.

the bubble tea stand although, never grew to have business as one would expect in places like vancouver or toronto, as it wasn't popular, nor were people a fan of tea. but we managed to drop by every weekend to drink a cup.

whenever i had to tell my brother that i wanted to drink bubble tea, i would say, "i want boolbooley!"

addicting, it is.