Crazy for That Tapioca Tea

Starbucks has nothing on this.

It’s a typical Saturday afternoon at Tea Station in San Gabriel, and the place is jumping. There is a line of customers at the counter, waiting for to-go orders. And every one of the dozen or so tables is occupied by groups of Taiwanese and Chinese students and young professionals. Some of them play card games or Chinese chess. Others pore over textbooks. Many drink what the menu here calls tapioca milk tea. Other common names include pearl tea, black pearl tea or boba, the name used in Taiwan, where the drink originated.

Boba is delicious, sweet and refreshing, with a striking appearance. For this reason, it is always served in a clear glass. But to neophytes, the drink might look, and taste, odd.

The dark tapioca balls, slightly smaller than marbles, stay in the bottom of the glass, creating a layered effect. The liquid part alone, usually a combination of black or green tea, regular milk and a clear, unflavored fruit syrup (for sweetness), is innocuous enough. It tastes like one of those popular iced coffee drinks you can find at any corner coffee house these days. But those balls at the bottom of the glass....

At first they are weird. You suck them through an appropriately jumbo straw, along with the cold, sweetened tea. They arrive in your mouth, slick and slightly gelatinous. And then you bite into one, or maybe several, because it is hard to control how many come through the straw. Hmmm. Chewy, but not too chewy--somewhere between a gummy candy and a marshmallow--with a subtle sweetness. Suddenly you want more. Drink as food. Thus begins the addiction.

Tea Station has a lot of repeat customers. So do Au 79 in Arcadia and Zen Zoo Tea in Brentwood, among the city’s most popular destinations for boba aficionados.

Boba hasn’t been around for long. Jimmy Huang, Tea Station’s owner, estimates that it goes back about 15 years in Taiwan. Ten years ago, when the drink really took off there, tea houses, which were opening at a caffeine-charged pace, started offering flavors such as peach, almond and grenadine. Then five years ago, shops started to close. Supply had surpassed demand.

Boba has been available in Los Angeles less than five years. And only within the last year has it moved beyond the Taiwanese and Chinese communities. Is a Starbucks debut next? Alfred Ritter, co-owner of Zen Zoo Tea, doesn’t think so.

“I don’t know if it’s mainstream enough,” says Ritter. “Plus, making them takes some finesse. We shake each one in a cocktail shaker.”

Cocktail shakers are also used at the best places in Taiwan. The tapioca balls, however, are not shaken. They are spooned into the glass, and the tea mixture is poured over them.

Though one could make boba at home, cooking the tapioca balls--they begin hard and dry--requires practice. “You can’t cook too much at a time,” says Tea Station’s Huang. “And it’s hard to cook a little bit. Also, you need to cook the same day you use it, like rice.”

Besides, the social aspect is an intrinsic part of enjoying boba. Or, as Huang put it, “The best snack, in my opinion [to accompany boba], is a friend.”

Boba is also often paired with rice bowls topped with curry chicken or stewed beef, tea-smoked or tea-simmered eggs or brick toast--slabs of toasted white bread with one of several toppings. Peanut butter, garlic butter, strawberry jam and condensed milk are popular options.

And what does boba mean? “The young kids don’t know the real meaning,” says Huang. “To them, it just means tea. But for my generation, it is used to describe someone like Dolly Parton or [Hong Kong star] Sally Yeh.”

Yet another reason why Starbucks can’t touch this.