what are the little balls in boba tea
Bubble tea Boba tea (also known as pearl milk tea, bubble milk tea, boba juice, boba tea, or simply bubble tea) (Chinese: 波霸奶茶; pinyin: bōbà nǎichá, with tapioca balls it is 珍珠奶茶; zhēnzhū nǎichá) is a Taiwanese tea-based drink invented in Tainan and Taichung in the 1980s.[1] Most bubble tea recipes contain a tea base mixed with fruit or milk, to which chewy tapioca balls (known as bubbles, pearls, or boba) and fruit jelly (especially tropical fruits like lychee) are often added. Ice-blended versions are usually mixed with fruit or syrup, resulting in a slushy consistency.[2] There are many varieties of the drink with a wide range of ingredients with some ingredients being mango, taro, coconut, and peach. The two most popular varieties are bubble milk tea with tapioca and bubble milk green tea with tapioca.[2]
Tea in the United Kingdom Green tea exported from China was first introduced in the coffeehouses of London shortly before the Stuart Restoration (1660); in 1657, tea was offered as an item in a London coffeehouse in Exchange Alley.[4] The owner Thomas Garraway had to explain the new beverage in a pamphlet, and an advertisement in Mercurius Politicus for 30 September 1658 offered "That Excellent, and by all Physicians approved, China drink, called by the Chinese, Tcha, by other nations Tay alias Tee, ...sold at the Sultaness-head, ye Cophee-house in Sweetings-Rents, by the Royal Exchange, London". [5] In London "Coffee, chocolate and a kind of drink called tee" were "sold in almost every street in 1659", according to Thomas Rugge's Diurnall.[6] Tea was mainly consumed by upper and mercantile classes: Samuel Pepys, curious for every novelty, tasted the new drink in 1660 and recorded the experience in his diary: [25 September] "I did send for a cup of tee, (a China drink) of which I had never had drunk before". Some years later, in 1667, Pepys noted that his wife was taking tea on medical advice â€“ "a drink which Mr Pelling the Pottecary tells her is good for her colds and defluxions". The Royal College of Physicians debated whether any of the exotic new hot drinks would "agree with the Constitutions of our English bodies".[7]