Corporate fabricated national days for specific foods and items are all well and good, especially if they come with discounts.
Since there’s Valentine’s Day for couples to celebrate, why not make 11/11 a day for singles on e-commerce where they can shop till their bank account figures drop?
Japan is especially in on the craze, because they have everything from Karaage Day to Chirashi Zushi (sushi rice with mixed toppings) Day.
Well, for us Singaporeans who love bubble tea, you’ll be happy to know that there is an official National Bubble Tea Day, and it falls on 30 April.
The Sweet Beginnings of Bubble Tea
For a small trip down history lane, the founder of the delicious drink we know and love comes from the Chun Shui Tang tea room in Taiwan.
Around the 1980s, the notion of serving beverages like teas and coffees cold was quickly picking up in popularity in Japan.
The owner of Chun Shui Tang tea room, Liu Han-Chieh, accredits the accidental creation of bubble tea to his teahouse product development manager Lin Hsiu Hui.
She had been playing around with her glass of iced tea during a meeting in 1998 when she dropped some pudding with tapioca balls into her drink on the whim.
The drink ended up being a hit with the other attendees, and thus became a mainstay in the tea room’s main menu, much to the customer’s delight.
Another claim to the creation of bubble tea is Tu Tsong, the owner of Hanlin Tea Room in Tainan, Taiwan.
He claims that he invented the “pearl tea” in 1986, which was partially inspired by the white tapioca balls that he saw in the Ya Mu Liao day market.
The difference is that he chose to mix brown sugar into his tapioca ball recipe, thus giving the pearl its signature darkened and glutinous colour.
No matter who the first creator was, we thank their contribution for bringing the wonderful beverage into our lives.
Who Suggested National Bubble Tea Day?
Funnily enough, it wasn’t Taiwan that suggested the day first.
Rather, the official anointing of a national day for bubble tea was done by America’s first bubble tea store called Kung Fu Tea retail, which opened for business in Queens, New York.
The national day was only officialised in 2018, as a marketing strategy to draw in more customers.
The reason why the national day’s date falls on 30 April is because Kung Fu Retail started business on 30 April 2010.
Well, not exactly.
Back on 29 January 2023, Google celebrated Bubble Tea with a delightful interactive game Doodle that not only commemorated the global popularity of the beverage but also marked the third anniversary of the bubble tea emoji’s launch.
The game featured Taiwan’s indigenous Formosan Mountain Dog alongside a crew of familiar Doodle characters, inviting players to satisfy their craving by making a cup of bubble tea.
And fast forward to 2024, all we can see when we think of bubble tea is…this:
Oh, wells.