Bubble Tea: 5 Years Later

Oh my God, you guys, I just tried the most amazing dish! You have to try it. It's, like, this kind of bread, like a flat kind of bread and they put this tomato sauce on it and then cover it with cheese and then they bake it and, like, oh my God you guys, you're gonna fucking die. It's sooooo good!

This was how I felt after trying bubble tea. For the first time. Two weeks ago. Like Christopher Fucking Columbus "discovering" America even though the place had been inhabited for about a bazillion years by people who covered their junk with buckskins and made really great elk jerky. Like I'd finally found the one, long lost, missing piece to my kittens and puppies puzzle right there under the couch. Like (let me just ruin the above joke by explaining it) I had just discovered pizza.

I don't know what has kept me from trying this delightful drink all these years. There is certainly no shortage of bubble tea establishments in Seattle. Even my former boss, who still wears shoulder pads and considers frozen T.G.I. Fridays mozzarella sticks to be an elegant cocktail party snack, could be found sucking tapioca pearls up those comically girthy straws on a daily basis. 

Funny Story. No, I don't have one, that is actually the name of the bubble tea & crepe place in the shopping center next to my work. Funny Story. I don't know what's so funny about bubble tea (the comically girthy straw, maybe?), but every time I see the big orange sign it makes me giggle (hmmm, so it is funny!) so I finally stopped in to see what all the fuss was about.

Oh man have I been wasting my life away drinking other things! Bubble tea! It's like a drink and a snack all in one, with it's sweet milky tea (or frozen slushy, your choice) and big chewy tapioca pearls. If there's one thing I like in this world (besides Scrabble and swallowing Jello without chewing) it's contrasting textures, and bubble tea has got just that. I lost my bubble tea virginity to the magical purple potato flavor and have had a hard time trying anything else despite a single, short lived, affair with coconut (it's pretty good too, but smacks slightly of Hawaiian Tropic).

I don't know why I'm telling you all this since you, and the rest of America, have been enjoying bubble tea since George Bush Jr was reelected and the Taiwanese have been sucking down the stuff since about the time I learned that yellow and blue make green. Maybe it's because I am newly in love, and like anyone in love, I want to tell absolutely everybody about it. Maybe because there are a few of you out there who have yet to be enlightened, and I want to be the one who saves you. I have been saved, my friends, and let me tell you: it feels good.