My Obsession with $1 Bubble Tea and Lychee Jellies

First there was Bubble Boy. One sip of my plum red tea with tapioca pearls and fruit jellies and my heart smiled and my taste buds sang.

Then a lychee green tea at Ochaya with tapioca…heaven. The pearls were richer, deeper.

Then a lemon-honey tea with lychee caviar at Lemon Farm. Lovely.

Then a melon tea with just fruit and coconut jellies at the place in the Tesco Lotus at On Nut BTS, where I could request my preferred sugar and ice levels. And another on the second floor of the Major Cineplex at Ekkamai BTS that does the same but only with sugar.

But there are a couple of things I’ve learned about bubble tea in Bangkok:

1. Red tea means black tea, not caffeine-free rooibos tea, as I’d hoped. As black tea is actually red in colour when brewed, I can’t really argue with this one…

2. Most of these places are chains and are found in the BTS stations and malls, but also on the street. When you buy them in the BTS stations (the skytrain), they are always poured into plastic takeaway cups, sealed with a plastic lid that’s melted on and a straw you can poke down through (almost as fun as sucking up the “bubbles” or tapioca pearls through the large straws), and THEN the teas are put in plastic bags. I thought Thai people were just really into plastic, but this is actually so that you can take your tea on the skytrain. No food or drink is allowed on the trains, so your tea has to be in a plastic bag or a security guard will stop you.

3. Thai people love sugar! So if you can’t request less sugar, you’re in for a real hit to your blood stream, which is delicious but tiring when you crash.

4. Some places you can request more or less ice! And while you’d think you’d only ever want less ice (a North American value for money thing), in a country where ice isn’t free and days are hot and sugar is everywhere, more ice is suddenly a luxury.

5. Tapioca is like glue in your stomach, so if you’re dealing with Bangkok belly, best to avoid bubble until you’re settled. And it’s crazy high in calories and higher than you think in fat. Basically this is a large meal or dessert of a drink if you get boba (tapioca pearls) and is incredibly rich with milk (sometimes they use sweetened condensed milk or half and half).

That being said, if you’re having trouble getting down a lot of food and are on a liquid diet, the calories in the sugary drink might be just what you need…100% pure orange juice mixed with mineral water might be a healthier idea, but much less fun, especially when there are lychee caviar made of spherified lychee juice like at Lemon Farm. the bubble “pop” in your mouth! And with the factory-made bubbles you know some pour soul isn’t standing above sodium alginate and calcium chloride to spherify the little droplets one by one, making them less of a guilty treat.

But then there are the other optional toppings for bubble tea here that I don’t quite understand. There’s pudding. Really? Pudding? Some places call it custard. Is that like a milky jelly? The jellies are usually the ones that come in bottles from the store, are coloured with artificial colourants, and contain high-fructose corn syrup. So if you order no sugar in your bubble tea and then get the jellies, it’s like ordering a non-fat skim milk latte with whipped cream.

I’m not sure what they use to sweeten the bubbles, but the black tapioca balls really are wonderful here. I just learned in the book “A Different Sky” that tapioca became a major product in most of Southeast Asia during the second world war, when people needed food and tapioca grew more quickly than other starches. Despite the lack of nutritional value, it was dense enough to make people feel full and to not starve.

Now it’s just slimey and fun and when there’s enough sugar added, it’s delicious. Thai people also eat cassava (same plant, but fresh instead of made into a glue-like starch) in coconut milk for dessert. Here again it’s all about the texture. You suck the outer layers like a lollipop, letting the milk sweeten and flavour the starch. Which is exactly what the sweet tea does in a bubble tea. If you end up with all bubbles and no tea the drink just doesn’t work.

So now I’m on the hunt for bubble tea shops that don’t charge more than 35 baht for a tea-free bubble tea with jellies, not tapioca. 50 baht was WAY too much (35=~$1.20 CAD/US and 50 baht = ~$1.70. An astronomical difference, I know). but there’s a place near the On Nut BTS that does 35 baht smoothies (ice and fresh fruit and they can lower the sugar if you want), so why should I spend more on fake fruit and corn syrup?

For the love of it, that’s why! So if you have a favourite Bangkok bubble tea place (or a Ho Chi Minh City place, since I’ll be there Saturday), let me know!!