WORLD FOCUS

Bubbling over: The globalisation of a tea craze

Bubble tea, which started in Taiwan, has won fans worldwide, with industry worth $60b

In 1983, Taiwanese tea enthusiast Liu Han-chieh came up with the idea for what is now known as bubble tea. The number of brands has increased dramatically since then, as entrepreneurs enter a market worth an estimated US$50 (S$68.7) billion.
Chatime, one of Taiwan's top bubble tea brands, made headlines when it opened a shop at Paris' Carrousel du Louvre in July last year.
PHOTO: CHATIME
Students buying bubble tea at an outlet of the JLD Dragon brand of shops in Xinyi district, Taipei. Today, bubble tea is popular not just in Taiwan but also around the world. ST PHOTO: LEE SEOK HWAI
A family learning to make pearl milk tea at Kili Bay Milk Tea Cultural Centre in Yilan, Taiwan. Taiwanese drink more than a billion cups of bubble tea a year, or an average of 44 cups a person. PHOTO: FACEBOOK/KILI BAY MILK TEA CULTURAL CENTRE
US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton drinking bubble tea at Kung Fu Tea at a mall outlet in the Queens borough of New York City while campaigning in 2016. PHOTO: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Hong Kong entertainer Nicholas Tse (right) offering Taiwanese singer Jay Chou a cup of bubble tea during a television variety show. PHOTO: WEIBO/SING!CHINA
Mr Liu Han-chieh opened the first Chun Shui Tang bubble-tea shop (above) in Taichung, Taiwan, in 1983. PHOTO: FACEBOOK/DU YOU-JHE, CHUN SHUI TANG
Mr Liu Han-chieh opened the first Chun Shui Tang bubble-tea shop in Taichung, Taiwan, in 1983. PHOTO: FACEBOOK/DU YOU-JHE, CHUN SHUI TANG
Lee Seok Hwai
Assistant Foreign Editor
Updated
Jan 07, 2019, 02:25 PM
Published
Jan 01, 2019, 05:00 AM
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TAIPEI/SINGAPORE • Singaporean Calvin Lee expected to be drinking a lot of coffee during a holiday in Vietnam last year, until he chanced upon bubble tea brand Gong Cha.

On more recent holidays in Seoul and Melbourne, he spotted the Taiwanese chain and other bubble tea brands such as ShareTea and CoCo.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on January 01, 2019, with the headline Bubbling over: The globalisation of a tea craze. Subscribe

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