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I remember my first introduction to bubble tea was when I visited my brother for the first time in Houston.  I was amazed at the list of different fruity flavors I could choose to mix with black or green tea and large black chewy tapioca balls (called boba or bubbles).  When I returned to Maryland and Nashville where the bubble tea scene is severely lacking, I was disappointed in the lack of selection and the outrageous prices.

Little did I know that there is so much beyond even the best bubble tea shop in Houston.  Oh, so much more.  Here in Taiwan, you almost literally can’t go an entire street block without walking past a tea shop.  In more crowded areas, usually even more than just one tea shop.

There’s so much you can customize.  First, there’s the tea base. You are no longer limited to just black and green tea.  No, there’s milk, chrysanthemum, oolong, jasmine, lemon, qing cha. And others that I don’t know how to read from the menu. Then, the flavors are different. The grapefruit green tea has real grapefruit in it; and, the passion fruit black tea has real passion fruit seeds in it.  There is no such thing as powder. My fruit tea has the real deal in it!  Third, your imagination can run wild with the chewy stuff you can add in!  Of course, there’s the regular boba (large chewy black tapioca balls), but then there’s the small tapioca balls too.  Not impressed? What about adding coconut jelly, grass jelly, oatmeal, barley, ai-yu jelly, crazy flower-like crunchy agar pieces (I have no idea what these are called), pudding, coffee jelly, or, my personal favorite, aloe vera?  Yeah, I bet you never thought of that before, huh?

Okay, so now you’ve ordered and decided the exact flavor that you want.  But, I’m not done yet.  Just like at Burger King, where you can “have it your way,” you can have bubble tea your way too!  What do I mean by that?  You can customize the sugar level from none, 1/3, 1/2, 3/4, or full.   And temperature.  Do you want it hot, warm, or cold?  If you opt for the cold version, you can tell them how much ice, too: more, less, none.

All within a few seconds, you can be completely empowered to design your own personal drink, to fit your picky taste buds’ needs.  Love it.