Drink Spotlight: Bubble Tea
Ramo Ramen sells fresh, real leaf bubble teas with homemade tapioca pearls and other toppings. Pictured above are three of our most popular flavours: matcha, taro, and assam black.
What is Bubble Tea? A Brief History
Today, we’re going to shine the spotlight on the true unsung hero of Ramo Ramen: our bubble tea! For those of you who might not know, bubble tea is a drink that originated among Taiwanese street vendors in the 1980s. It encompasses a wide variety of flavoured fruit teas and milk teas that can be served either hot or cold, and is also commonly referred to as pearl milk tea, boba milk tea, or tapioca tea. This is because its defining feature is the pearls of sweet and chewy tapioca that you suck up through a large, colourful straw. The longstanding rumour behind the evolution of the tapioca balls in the tea is that product development manager Lin Hsiu Hui supposedly poured the tapioca from her pudding into her assam iced tea during a staff meeting one day, resulting in the delicious discovery.
Bubble Tea Throughout the World
Although bubble tea initially came from Taiwan, it has since rapidly spread throughout Asia and the rest of the world in the past decade, becoming a massively popular global phenomenon. It first arrived in the UK around 2010. Assad Khan, a former investment banker who went on to open the first bubble tea store in London, says that it’s a radically “different taste experience,” and that although it was “at first a bit difficult to grasp…I never had any doubt that it would work [in the UK].” Sure enough, bubble tea has become a major hit, and bubble tea shops are now ubiquitous throughout many of the country’s high streets. In Germany, bubble tea is now so popular that locals host regular bubble tea drinking competitions, and even their McDonald’s restaurants have even started serving it.
Ramo Ramen’s Bubble Tea
Although you probably know Ramo for our fantastic selection of ramen noodle bowls, you might not know that we also sell an extensive range of fresh, real leaf bubble teas! This includes both hot and cold milk teas, with classic flavours such as matcha, taro, assam black, and honeydew, as well as refreshing fruit teas such as peach, lychee, mango, kiwi, and passionfruit. As for our toppings, you can of course get our tapioca pearls (which are always freshly made in-house every day), but we also offer some other fun options, such as lychee jelly, aloe vera, and passionfruit popping boba. You can mix and match multiple toppings in one drink.
These special treats act as the perfect fruity or creamy complement to any of our starters or ramen bowls. If you’re on the go, you can also get them in takeaway cups! They are just £3.80, so make sure to stop in at our store at 157 Kentish Town Road today to get in on them!