Bubble tea, an infamous drink that goes by many names. Bubble tea, milk tea, boba, pearl milk tea; all names that mean different things, but refer to the same drink! As an avid bubble tea drinker, I have often run into the age-old question what is the true identity of this delicious drink. For the purpose of consistency, I will be referring to it as bubble tea.

First, we need to look at the history of bubble tea. Bubble tea originated in Taiwan and is originally called Pearl Milk Tea or 珍珠奶茶 in Chinese. Pearl milk tea refers to the most basic form of bubble tea, the ingredients consisting of Tapioca, milk, creamer, brewed tea, sugar, and flavorings. This is what you typically the image that comes to peoples mind when they think of Bubble tea.

Now that we have the most basic drink covered we can start to move on to the different names, the first being boba. Many people refer to boba as the drink itself. Boba, in fact, is the tapioca. The tapioca is the little black balls or pearls at the bottom of the drink (This is why in Taiwan it is called pearl milk tea!). Calling the drink Boba is by no means wrong, but you would be talking about only a part of the drink.

Bubble Tea, the name I have been using throughout this post, is personally the name I have encountered most often. Bubbles also mean the same thing as pearls or boba or tapioca. So bubble tea is simply just tea with tapioca!

Milk tea, not as commonly used as bubble tea or boba, is mostly used to differentiate milk tea from loose tea drinks at chains restaurants. Milk tea is what is seen in the image above, loose-leaf (probably black or green) that has been mixed with a sweet creamer or milk and flavoring. If you have ever ordered at a bubble tea chain, such as Vivi, Cocos, Kung fu tea, you have seen the extensive menu of these places. Fruit tea, green tea, black tea, slushies, milk tea caps! Milk tea is one of these categories on menus. It covers any loose tea that a creamer or milk gets added to (oolong milk tea, black milk tea, green milk tea, etc.)

As you can probably see all of this name-calling is just a bunch of semantics, it doesn’t really matter what you say. Whether you call it Boba, Bubble Tea, Pearl Milk Tea, Milk Tea, or the drink with the little black dots at the bottom, Bubble tea is a delicious drink that everyone should add to their food bucket list!