Last spring break, I ventured to Boston for the first time on a red-eye flight and, the following day, felt sick and delirious with no sleep in my system. I had set out to visit a childhood friend whom I’d grown up with in Shanghai.
When I finally recovered, I voiced my hope to visit Chinatown — Boston mayor Michelle Wu is Taiwanese, and I was excited for reminders of home through cultural comfort foods. We ended up having dinner at a packed Taiwanese restaurant.
During my trip, I had not, however, expected to encounter another part of my cultural identity. Stepping out into a chilly night, I spotted a brightly lit Molly Tea (茉莉奶白) store — a popular Chinese milk tea chain — at the corner of an intersection. Its warm presence embraced my shivery body. I felt irrationally disoriented; just the sight of the shop looked and felt so much like the Molly Tea stores I knew in China that I almost forgot which country I was in.
As we entered, the details felt familiar, from the renovations and tea-filled aromatic scents to the menu and Chinese characters. In a moment of giddiness, I clumsily leaned against the counter, sliding it backwards. When I noticed a Chinese worker readjusting it, I instinctively said “excuse me” in Mandarin, to which he answered “it’s okay” back in Mandarin.
The exchange, combined with the familiar environment around me, was exhilarating. I was halfway across the earth, but I felt as though I had stepped back into China. The milk tea store became a cross-dimensional, incomprehensible simulation of home.
In the United States, the term “boba” or “bubble tea” often serves as shorthand for a whole category of drinks and the shops that sell them. It stirs up vague Asian imagery that might include something like an ube frostie filled with tapioca pearls — colloquially referred to as ‘boba’ — topped off with a matcha cream top.
These drinks may be sweet-tasting, but the widespread, stereotypical understanding of ‘boba’ in the West can flatten much wider histories of similar operations in Asia. Tapioca pearls are one possible ingredient, not the entirety of the drink’s identity. The general idea of ‘Asian flavors’ may also obscure the roots of boba being paired with various kinds of Chinese or Taiwanese native teas, like jasmine or oolong.
“I see “boba” added into ordinary American drinks like soda slushies or lemonade, and I wonder: “What do they know about tapioca pearls and the culture behind the teas traditionally paired with them?””
Other times, I see “boba” added into ordinary American drinks like soda slushies or lemonade, and I wonder: “What do they know about tapioca pearls and the culture behind the teas traditionally paired with them?” Moreover, it hurts to hear people unfamiliar with tapioca pearls complain that the ingredient seems weird, bearing resemblance to frog eggs — a sentiment I’ve heard online and in person.
Today, bubble tea is closely associated with its origins in Taiwan, where the ideal texture for boba is widely called ‘QQ,’ meaning perfectly chewy and bouncy. On the other hand, mainland China has developed its own varied milk tea culture. Its developing chains have become familiar fixtures of contemporary urban life, especially amongst Gen Z young adults.
I first noticed the popularity of these milk tea stores last September. I was in Rowland Heights with two of my Chinese friends, both international students like me, to eat spicy Hunan cuisine. Before we even entered the restaurant, I marveled at the neighborhood. Chinese signs appeared everywhere, even on bench advertisements. Still, I understood the distinction between being in an area with a large Chinese community and being at home.
As we ate, I noticed a couple walk in carrying drinks from Alittle Tea (一點點), a Chinese milk tea chain I had known and regularly visited since elementary school. A brand that had belonged in the background of my everyday life in China had unexpectedly appeared in California, and I had somehow missed out on its existence here until my sophomore year of college.
Yet that evening in Boston, the whole boba environment seemed to click into place at once. I knew all about the rhythms of Molly Tea, and I did not have to assemble home from scattered references. It was a relief to sit inside a space that made complete sense.
This makes me think of Chinatown. Although Chinatown can offer a powerful kind of immersion too, it feels different to me. Its people, restaurants, signage and street life form a rich mosaic shaped by different generations of immigrants and Asian American communities. This is meaningful in its own right, but I experience the neighborhood as a place with its own history and culture, not as a replica of the China I knew. A Chinese milk tea chain, by contrast, gathers many familiar details into one coherent environment.
I’m reminded of when I recently visited a Heytea (喜茶) in the United States for the first time and was excited to discover that its menu closely resembled the ones back in China. Late in the evening, a couple of international students nearby were casually chatting in Mandarin over their drinks.
Earlier this month, I told my American partner about Heytea and this specific location in Los Angeles, as he lives close by. When I explained that Heytea was a Chinese brand with a substantial presence in China, he said he would have assumed it to simply be a cool new boba shop.
Since then, he has paid more attention to the customers and noticed how many seem to be Chinese international students. We were looking at the same storefront, but it told us different stories, shaped through our distinctive coming-of-age journeys.
These spaces do overlap: international students visit Chinatowns, and Asian Americans visit Chinese milk tea chains. Still, they can evoke different kinds of resonance. One reflects Chinese diasporic life as it has taken root in America, while the other can feel like a piece of modern-day China transplanted intact.
Chinese milk tea stores abroad have an extraordinary presence that contributes to a unique role in the broader cultural ecosystem. For me, and perhaps other Chinese international students, stepping into a milk tea shop in a foreign land is like finding a wormhole back to the place where our roots run deep.
Rochelle Lu SC ’28 is from Shanghai, China and Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Her favorite drinks from Heytea or Molly Tea are variations of guava jasmine milk tea.
Facebook Comments