Sip REAL Boba Tea on National Bubble Tea Day
It’s been around since the ‘80s in Taiwan, after a savvy food stall operator combined three Taiwanese passions — milk tea, shave ice and tapioca pearls — into one beverage. What we call boba or “bubble” tea soon captured the Taiwanese imagination.
It took a few decades for the boba craze to hit the United States. And now, people across the country plunge fat straws into cold cups of sweet, milky tea, take strong sips, and chew tapioca balls as they swallow the liquid.
The style of iced tea has become so popular here that it’s even got its own celebration. Tomorrow is National Bubble Tea Day.
We love boba at Ku Cha House of Tea. All of our stores serve it. But we stand apart from some of the boba chains and shops that dot the Front Range.
Beware of Too Bright Boba Tea
Most of them rely on powders packed with artificial colors, sweeteners and flavors, preservatives, and chemicals that help manufacture textures. Many of their beverages don’t even contain real tea! Those that do rely on the dregs of the tea world: stale scraps of leaves and stems often swept from the floors of tea processing facilities and sold in bulk for commercial enterprises.
As a purveyor of true artisan, whole-leaf teas, this style of bubble tea was not for us. Instead, we combine beautiful teas, natural flavors and tapioca pearls and let you decide whether you want milk and sugar, and if so, in what quantities.
Head to Ku Cha for Artisan Bespoke Boba Tea
Never had custom, artisan boba before? Then you haven’t yet tasted bubble tea at its finest. Swing by our shops in Boulder, Cherry Creek or Fort Collins and give the good stuff a shot. There’s no turning back.
We usually carry six flavors of teas that we offer as house iced teas, and which often are used to make boba for guests: Rocky Mountain Breakfast black tea, Masala Chai, Jasmine, Mango and Vanilla Rooibos (caffeine-free). Matcha Latte is another excellent boba choice.
In addition, Ku Cha employees in each shop experiment every month with creating blends that lend themselves to making boba. The best blends then become the shop’s Boba Flavor of the Month.
In Boulder this month, for example, our team member Terrie combined our Spring in Paris black tea and our Toasted Almond Fruit Tea for the boba blend. We call it “Strawberry Milk Tea,” due to the wonderful strawberry flavors found in the teas.
We make many boba drinks every day in our shop. Demand is beginning to rise again, as increasingly more people in Colorado get vaccinated and begin venturing out with more gusto.
DIY Boba Tea at home? Easy.
But you don’t need to visit a Ku Cha shop to savor fine boba tea. We encourage people to make boba at home, and know from experience that our kids love the boba-at-home option!
Ku Cha offers more than 170 whole-leaf teas at Ku Cha. All of them can be turned into boba with the addition of tapioca pearls and, if desired, milk and sugar.
But some lend themselves better to boba preparations than others.
One winning category of teas is fruity teas, such as Passionfruit Oolong, China Lychee, Mango Green, Apricot Black Tea and Enchanted Forest (a green tea blend with yerba mate).
Another popular style of tea for boba is rich rooibos teas. We find that Rooibos Creamsicle, Vanilla Rooibos and Rooibos Earl Grey are all outstanding, and naturally caffeine-free.
Finally, our Organic Rose Puerh makes a sublime boba tea. When combined with milk and a sweetener, this earthy, fermented tea is a wonderful Rose Puerh Latte — with boba.
All you need: tapioca pearls, straws and tea
We don’t sell tapioca pearls at Ku Cha. But finding them no longer is difficult. They are widely available for online purchase, and quite affordable. In addition, most supermarket chains now, from Whole Foods Market to King Soopers carry tapioca pearls.
Further, those all-important bubble-tea straws also are easy to find at local grocers and online.
Just as our employees have fun exploring our vast tea inventory, creating custom blends, and turning them into boba, so can you. Want some color, flavors of vanilla, cherry, chocolate and coffee? Then you might like brewing our Shanghai Dreams fruit tea with our Rooibos Chocolate, which together contain all of these flavors, and more. After you finish brewing and chilling the tea blend, pour it over ice with milk and honey and add tapioca pearls. And just like that, you’ve created your own bespoke boba tea.
Slurp away, friends! Happy National Bubble Tea Day!
