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Chronicles of a Bubble Tea Addict

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Re: Chronicles of a Bubble Tea Addict

#101

Post by hnick »

nmfisher wrote: post #48
yocheckitdawg wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should come to Melbourne CBD in Australia. I can only assume they are being used as fronts to launder money or as a business investment to secure residency as there seems to be no possible way even a city of Melbourne's size could consume this much bubble tea. It's almost at the point where there are bubble tea sellers directly next to each other in the street. And I'm talking dozens, if not hundreds, of them.

I can’t say for sure that they’re all not fronts. However, I know someone who owns one in the CBD and it is definitely legitimate - not to mention makes money hand over fist. There are tens of thousands of mainland Chinese living in the CBD, and it’s basically a daily staple for a huge chunk of them. Some of these places are charging $7-$8 for something that costs all of 20 cents to make. The margins are huge - the b…

I can't speak for the rent but from what I was told the setup (machines) is very cheap, as are the ingredients like you say. I'll also go out on a small limb and say food businesses with predominantly foreign student workers tend to have a history of underpaid cash wages. My wife was offered $6 an hour cash in the early 2000s at one place in Sydney, I think she was 17 but still that's way too little.

Re: Chronicles of a Bubble Tea Addict

#102

Post by hnick »

Guthur wrote: post #26

Where i grew up the closest I'd come to an Asian community was the family run Chinese take away in my home town. Consequently I've completely missed bubble tea, and now I'm of the age where I couldn't really stomach that much sugar in one sitting.

We always ask for zero sugar zero ice, unless it's a very hot day. We'll often get lychee jelly or something as well as the pearls so it's sweet anyway.

You can also order it heated from some places instead of having ice, I had it in winter in China, it was nice but the bubbles get very gummy if you take too long.

Re: Chronicles of a Bubble Tea Addict

#103

Post by herendin »

kibibyte wrote: post #12

How did "boba" become the de facto term for the drink? I remember calling it "pearl milk tea" in middle school, somehow switching over to "bubble tea" in late high school to college, and now calling it "boba". And I don't think I heard of the slang meaning until much later. Aside from that, as I am a first generation (native-born) Chinese-American, this article discusses my identity scarily well from an angle that I…

I think there's some confusion in English between 泡沫紅茶 (literally bubble tea) and 珍珠奶茶 (pearl milk tea or boba), because the words bubble and boba sound quite similar, particularly for someone speaking English as a second language. The tapioca pearls even look a little like bubbles.

Often bubble and boba are used interchangeably now, but I think they originally referred to two different types of tea-based drink, as the Chinese-language names still do. The same shop often sells both types of drink, so this inevitably adds to the confusion.

Google image search 泡沫紅茶 and 珍珠奶茶 to see the difference

Re: Chronicles of a Bubble Tea Addict

#104

Post by dmos62 »

spicybright wrote: post #64
soulofmischief wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Rat Park experiments showed us that well-socialized rats were less likely to develop addiction to cocaine than socially deprived rats. "Researchers had already proved that when rats were placed in a cage, all alone, with no other community of rats, and offered two water bottles-one filled with water and the other with heroin or cocaine-the rats would repetitively drink from the drug-laced bottles until they all o…

This is very much debunked, but keeps getting propagated because people like the results. It's never been able to be re-produced.

The "Follow up experiments" section of the Wikipedia article somewhat contradicts you:

> Studies that followed up on the contribution of environmental enrichment to addiction produced mixed results. A replication study found that both caged and "park" rats showed a decreased preference for morphine compared to Alexander's original study; the author suggested a genetic reason for the difference Alexander initially observed.[9] Another study found that while social isolation can influence levels of heroin self-administration, isolation is not a necessary condition for heroin or cocaine injections to be reinforcing.[10]

> Other studies have reinforced the effect of environmental enrichment on self-administration, such as one that showed it reduced re-instatement of cocaine seeking behavior in mice through cues (though not if that re-instatement was induced by cocaine itself)[11] and another that showed it can eliminate previously established addiction-related behaviors.[12] Furthermore, removing mice from enriched environments has been shown to increase vulnerability to cocaine addiction[13] and exposure to complex environments during early stages of life produced dramatic changes in the reward system of the brain that resulted in reduced effects of cocaine.[14]

> Broadly speaking, there is mounting evidence that the impoverished small cage environments that are standard for the housing of laboratory animals have undue influence on lab animal behavior and biology.[15] These conditions can jeopardize both a basic premise of biomedical research—that healthy control animals are healthy—and the relevance of these kinds of animal studies to human conditions.[16]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park#Follow_up_experiments

Re: Chronicles of a Bubble Tea Addict

#105

Post by 205guy »

The boba phenomenon has always surprised me. I enjoy boba, but there are so many other cool slimy-solids-in-sweet-drink to be had at Ranch 99 market (the Chinese supermarkets in California): grass jelly, basil seed drink, nata de coco, and some I’m forgetting. It seems that most boba tea places only have the regular tapioca balls.

I was once in Chinatown in New York and found a sweet tea with small mushrooms floating in it (I think they were straw mushrooms) but I can’t find anything like it with Google. Then there is falooda from India with vermicelli, among others. But I think the next popular “drink/dessert” will be Filipino halo halo.

It’s a wide world out there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nata_de_coco

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grass_jelly

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falooda

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo-halo

Re: Chronicles of a Bubble Tea Addict

#106

Post by flobosg »

iljya wrote: post #81
legulere wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know why you see Indians drinking tea with milk more traditional than British doing that, considering that British brought tea to India.

That tea is - for the most part - known as "chai" in India suggests a different origin (the world's languages are largely divided on the first sound in the word for tea: either Te or Ch). It is true that the British brought large scale tea production to India, but the plant is endemic to India and its local consumption long predates the British (though the exact origins are somewhat obscure). https://en.m.wikipedia.o…

It seems that words for tea that derived from "cha" spread across land, while the ones originating from "tea" developed over sea routes.

https://qz.com/1176962/map-how-the-word-tea-spread-over-land...

Re: Chronicles of a Bubble Tea Addict

#107

Post by jimmygrapes »

ewokone wrote: post #33

Reading the 'in the realm of hungry ghosts' from Gabor Mate I learned that is not the substance itself but 3 major circumstances which trigger addiction in the human: powerlessness, isolation and stress. These key factors bring up behaviour patterns for addiction. Let it be sugar, sex, Screentime, drugs, food, sport, buying things, etc.... Really helped me to reflect on my patterns and I also learned about the differ…

I learned this ages ago as HALT: hungry, angry, lonely, tired.

Re: Chronicles of a Bubble Tea Addict

#108

Post by happytoexplain »

barnaclejive wrote: post #8

Gross. I had bubble tea exactly once while interviewing at FB. I had to choke it back and try not look like an idiot. Pretty sure that is the one and only reason why I didn't get an offer - "this dude is clearly from the Midwest and has no place here." /s

Jumping from "I didn't enjoy bubble tea" directly to "so they probably hate me because of their elitist socio-demographic biases" comes off as self-pitying, and pretty highly unrealistic.
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