Arts & Entert ainment Toss the frappucino, grab a bubble tea instead

DIANA ASHJIAN STAFF WRITER DA725@CABRINI EDU

Starbucks and Jazzman’s café have some up-and-coming competition in the business of brewery. Bubble Tea, the newest alternative to coffee and most eager accomplice to yoga, is coming soon to a coffee shop near you.

Invented by Liu Han-Chieh, bubble tea is also known as boba drink and pearl tea drink.

Its’ingredients include fruit, tea, milk, ice and flavorings such as strawberry and tapioca that are shaken up in a martini shaker to create the perfect frothy blend. Not only is its’tea substance unique, but its’gummy textured pearls which float at the bottom and top of the drink add a funky character and chewy treat that has an MTVgeneration puzzled as well as thirsty.

Bubble tea’s humble beginning catered to elementary school students in Taiwan in the early 80’s. Its’unexpected wave of popularity impelled further tea stands that eventually led to bub- ble tea shops and a pilgrimage to big cities like L.A., Seattle and New York here in the U.S.

The closest bubble tea location to Cabrini is 14 miles away on 2110 State Highway, No. 70 East in Cherry Hill, NJ. However, if any student is familiar with the Penn State area, then there is also a location on 436 E. College Ave in State College, Pennsylvania. If these locations are not accessible in order to quench curious taste buds, boba drink can be ordered online at Bubbleteasupply.com where a kit that can be prepared at home is thirty five dollars.

Also at this site is useful information for Cabrini’s future hopeful entrepreneurs that advises not to brush bubble tea off as a fad because its’North American business has boomed increasingly since the late 90’s and has won one international taste award and one American taste award.

Still not convinced that bubble drink is worth looking into?

Bubble tea was actually used to stir political knowledge of defense weaponry dealings

Ingredients: between the U.S. and Taiwan. In Taipei, people proudly suck milk tea mixed with tapioca balls to symbolically oppose an $18 billion dollar purchase of U.S. weapons. The Taiwan Defense Ministry thought that by encouraging their people to drink one less bubble tea drink per week that the government would then be better able to afford weapons and therefore keep China backed down from attacking them. Their tactics had a reverse effect and instead, bubble tea has increased in profit by about 50 percent since the people of Taiwan would rather see money go toward the prosper of their country then toward its’potential destruction.

So, drink pearl tea to have some fun, quench some thirst or make a statement because green teas and frappachinos are yesterday’s news. The drink is healthy and invigorating as well as bold and innovative. And not unlike the people in Taipei, the feng-sui practicing Californians, or the students who chant, “We are Penn State,” bubble tea wants you!

3 ounces tapioca pearls sugar syrup

1 cup brewed tea

1 cup milk

Ice cubes

Directions: Prepare the sugar syrup for the tapioca pearls. Place the tapioca pearls in the large glass. Add the milk. Add