Bubble tea, and two shops that both claim it
Taiwan in the 1980s, tapioca pearls in iced milk tea, and two establishments with competing claims that went as far as a lawsuit. It is now one of the largest tea-based product categories in the world.
The 1980s
Sources disagree. Sources give different dates and the disagreement has not been resolved. The conflict is reported rather than adjudicated.
Chun Shui Tang in Taichung and Hanlin Tea Room in Tainan both claim the invention, with dates in the early to mid 1980s. Litigation between them did not settle authorship. TeaHQ reports the dispute rather than choosing.
Disputed. Specialists disagree. TeaHQ does not pick a winner.
What happened
Iced, shaken, sweetened milk tea with chewy tapioca pearls at the bottom and a wide straw to drink them through. The format spread through Taiwan, then to the Taiwanese and wider East Asian diaspora, then globally, and diversified enormously — fruit teas, cheese foam, jellies, and a whole vocabulary of sugar and ice levels.
Why it matters
It is the most successful new tea product of the last fifty years and it brought a very large number of people to tea who would not have arrived any other way. It is also a genuine cultural export with a traceable diaspora path, which is unusual and worth recording precisely rather than describing as a trend.
Who was involved
Chun Shui Tang, Taichung
companyClaims the invention; associated with the shaken iced tea that preceded it
Hanlin Tea Room, Tainan
companyAlso claims the invention, with tapioca pearls added to iced tea
Connected events
- Canned oolong from 1981; canned unsweetened green tea from 1985 — Japan puts unsweetened tea in a can
- From the 2000s, with acute supply pressure from the mid-2020s — The matcha boom, and the shortage it produced
What this touches
Producing countries
Culture and history
Compiled from published sources by people who are not historians of this region or period. Where accounts conflict the disagreement is reported rather than settled.