Bubble Tea



What is bubble tea?



Bubble tea is a beverage consisting of milk/non-milk red/green tea with over-sized not-so-soft sago called pearls. The mix is shaken, not stirred.



Rise of bubble tea



I remember my first bubble tea. It was in a tea-house turned restaurant in Ang Mo Kio Jubilee Complex. I ordered red tea with milk and pearls. What pique my curiosity was the huge wine glasses used to serve the tea and the huge straws, which was needed to suck up the over-sized sago. And i think it was also the first time i drank 'tea-beng', iced tea.



I think that tea-house turned restaurant was one of the pioneer of bubble tea. Bubble tea market grew quickly with the advent of take away bubble tea machines. Bubble tea began popping up all over singapore, and i suspect other countries too. The market barriers were low and price wars erupted. Pearls dropped from 50c to free and drinks from $2 to two for $1. You know something is not quite right when the sugar cane uncle at the hawker center starts tapping into the bubble tea market by selling his own bubble tea.



Sonn there were loads of variety. From fanciful names like "snow bubble tea" to ice-blended fruit flavors to pearls of varied colors, shape and aloe vera. At a consumption rate of one drink per day, it would take months to finish the menu.



Fall of bubble tea



My initial reaction to bubble tea mania (supplier mania, not consumer mania. I don't think there ever was a consumer mania for bubble tea) was "Hey, i could join the fun and tap into the market!", but everyone was selling bubble tea. The quality of bubble tea degraded rapidly. At one point, one would wonder whether he was ordering bubble tea or bubble water. Bubble water, literally. The beverages, except for a couple in the menu, were no longer made from tea, but plain water!



My name is Bond, no? But there is a definite difference between shaking and stirring. The procedure degenerated into half-hearted shakes. If the seller were to give such weak shakes, would it not be better to stir it in the cup? Atleast that would save the cost on washing the shaker. Which the sellers in a way did. The mix was added to the cup and sealed. The cup itself was then shaken.



The explosive growth bubble tea reached a saturation point where there was not enough demand to meet the supply. Some businesses didn't make good profits and closed. The bubble tea mania started to dwindle and closed even more businesses.



Rise of the dough



Recently, bread shops are popping up everywhere. The interesting difference is that both setup costs and operating costs of selling bread is much higher than bubble tea. Bubble tea was a one man job with the cup sealing machine. Bread requires an oven, a much more expensive machine, and usually more than one baker.



How well would this bread shops fare, we'll have to wait and see. But my guess is it's falling into the bubble tea trend.