Bubble Tea: The Origins of the Trend

While there’s plenty of debate online and elsewhere about where bubble tea truly came from, there’s one tea shop and one woman that are widely regarded as the original creators of this beloved drink.

As a long-time bubble tea fan, I was ecstatic to meet the woman who’s behind it all when I visited her legendary teahouse, Chun Shui Tang, in Taichung, Taiwan – the birthplace of bubble tea itself.

Liu Han-Chieh, the founder, had the idea to serve Chinese tea cold in the early 1980s after a trip to Japan, where he noticed cold coffee being served in cafes.

This innovation helped turn his modest teahouse chain into a fixture of Taiwanese tea culture.

In 1988, during a staff meeting, product development manager Ms. Lin Hsiu Hui was enjoying a typical Taiwanese dessert called fen yuan, a sweet tapioca pudding. Just for fun, she added the tapioca pearls to her Assam iced tea and took a sip.

“Everyone at the meeting instantly loved the new drink, and it quickly surpassed all our other iced teas in sales within just a couple of months. Even after 20 years, bubble tea accounts for 80-90% of our sales, and it’s a source of pride for Taiwanese people,” Lin recalls.

Bubble tea is everywhere now

Today, bubble tea shops can be found on nearly every street corner in Taiwan. The trend spread to nearby countries like Japan, South Korea, and China, eventually reaching the rest of the world. Had Lin trademarked the drink, they could have become multimillionaires.

But Lin chose a different path.

“Our primary goals at Chun Shui Tang are to promote Taiwanese tea and its culture, as well as create innovative products,” Lin explains. “By focusing on the quality of our offerings and the teahouse experience, we trust our guests will appreciate it and continue returning.”

I was invited to participate in a traditional tea ceremony, led by an impressively graceful waitress.

“Many Taiwanese who live abroad make our teahouse their first stop when they land, and their last stop before heading back to the airport,” Lin shares. “They often request that we expand internationally, but we’ve resisted,”

Given the strong demand for Chun Shui Tang’s teas from both local Taiwanese and overseas Chinese, why not follow a ‘Starbucks’ model and expand to meet the demand?

A dedication to the craft

“We now have over 30 teahouses across Taiwan, but we go to great lengths to recruit the best staff. It can take up to six months for a barista to master the 80-plus drinks on our menu, and we look for staff who are truly passionate about tea and tea culture,” Lin explains.

At Chun Shui Tang, staff take great care, using only premium ingredients. They only use the finest Taiwanese-produced milk, and any tapioca balls left to cook for over three hours are discarded.

Each bubble tea is made fresh to order and shaken, not blended like in other stores. A refractometer, which measures the sweetness of food and drinks, is used to ensure every tea is just as sweet as the customer desires.

It’s like specifying how you want your steak cooked when ordering at a restaurant.

Despite the immense popularity of their bubble teas and snacks, Lin and her team aren’t slowing down.

The team is required to create at least five new drinks and a variety of snacks every year.

“We treat our teas like sommeliers treat wine; each drink is designed to pair perfectly with the snacks and meals we offer. Even babies love our milk teas.”

If babies are enjoying their teas, it’s safe to say Chun Shui Tang’s success is likely to endure for generations to come.

Derrick Chang is a Canadian photojournalist based in Hong Kong.