- 4/29/2025
From exclusive items to portion sizes, we wanted to find all the differences between boba in the US and the UK. This is “Food Wars.”
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00:00We're comparing two of the most popular bubble tea chains in the US and the UK.
00:04First let's break down what bubble tea actually is. Bubble tea is a super
00:08popular tea drink that originated in Taiwan in the 1980s. There are many kinds
00:13of bubble tea but generally speaking it consists of a tea as well as some tapioca
00:16pearls also known as boba. Now let's get into the portions. At Kung Fu Tea you can
00:20get drinks in two sizes medium and large. Bubbleology offers drinks in three
00:24sizes regular large and supreme. I'm not seeing exact amounts for the drink
00:30sizes so let's just see how much liquid is in each size. Let's start with the
00:35medium. It smells so good. This is good soup. Our regular looks like just under 400
00:41milliliters. Next up is the large. The large comes out to about 550 milliliters.
00:47And finally the supreme and our supreme was around 700 milliliters maybe slightly
00:52less. They've got us feet in the UK but you guys do like your tea so that makes
00:56sense. Here we have a large taro milk tea. I'm gonna drain this and see how many
01:01tapioca pearls that we get. We're gonna do that with our large bubbleology taro milk
01:05tea as well. So our large boba tea in the UK had 141 tapioca pearls. Oh my god that
01:14works so well. I actually don't think I've ever had a taro flavored thing before. It's
01:20definitely really earthy tasting and a subtle sweetness which I really like. Also I would
01:26say even like this much slightly floral leaning it's not just like sweet it's
01:32something of the earth. Very florally tasting to me. Got sweetness to it but not
01:39too sweet. A little bit earthiness to it as well. Yeah I like that. It's good. Both
01:44kung fu tea and bubbleology are popular boba tea chains in their respective
01:47countries. Bubbleology does exist in the US but it's not as popular there as it is
01:51in the UK. Even though kung fu tea and bubbleology are different chains there
01:54are several drinks that appear on both menus. Let's start with the milk teas.
01:57We've already talked about the taro milk tea but we've also got coconut, strawberry.
02:02I'm gonna take a taste of it. Strawberry milk tea sounds right up my alley. I was one
02:08of those Nesquik kids. I was obsessed with that strawberry bright red syrup that
02:14you would add to milk. Oh this looks just like it. It's making me feel really nostalgic.
02:21This is really helping me with my anger. It has such a similar vibe to the Nesquik.
02:28Much more fresh and delicious though. Then we have the rosehip milk tea and honeydew milk
02:33tea. I am not a big melon person. I don't think I like really any melon very much so this
02:40is a risk for me. I should not have drank that. I don't really know how to explain this one.
02:47The flavor is so intense. This tastes like you just bit into a honeydew melon. It's very bizarre.
02:54The smell is also very strong. I don't know how they got this flavor into a drink but it's pretty
03:00cool even though I don't really like it. Here are our similar milk tea options. We also have a coconut.
03:05Not much coconut flavor in all honesty. That's a pretty mild coconut. We have a strawberry milk tea.
03:12I'm not very good at this. Yeah the difference in like strength of flavor in those two is
03:21leaps and bounds. Very strong strawberry flavor. Here we have a rose milk tea. You gotta be really
03:27I'm not aggressive enough with my stabbings. There you go. You really do get the rose flavor. It's like
03:33when you have the rose Turkish delight. It's kind of the only other rose flavored thing that I commonly
03:38eat. And even that's not that common. I'm not in the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Who likes
03:43Turkish delight that much? No one. He's the only person to ever like Turkish delight that much.
03:47Here we have our honeydew milk tea.
03:52Interesting. Honestly not a big fan of honeydew melon as a fruit but don't mind the flavor in drink
03:58form. Apparently that's pretty good. I have something called an Oreo wow. Wow refers to the
04:08tapioca balls which are caramelized with brown sugar. That sounds amazing. I love anything Oreo
04:13cookies and cream flavored. So let's break into it. It literally tastes like when you leave your Oreos
04:22and milk too long and it just breaks apart. I think that's literally what it is. That's good. That's so
04:28delicious. We also have an Oreo drink on our menu. The Oreo crush. I don't really know what they've done
04:33to this one. When I heard the name I imagined crushed up Oreo in there. I can't really see it so let's get
04:38a taste. Definitely do get an Oreo flavor from it. Could be a little bit stronger. And also maybe put some
04:45like pieces of Oreo in there. I think if you drank that quickly enough they wouldn't go super soggy.
04:50It might work. But you might end up with just kind of like slush at the end.
04:56These shops don't only sell milk teas. They've also got fruit teas. At Kung Fu Tea they have these
05:01punch drinks that are fruit teas mixed with lemonade. That is way more up my alley I think than regular
05:06milk teas. Here we have passion fruit green tea. I love anything passion fruit so I definitely want to
05:13taste. That is so delicious and refreshing. I could get into this. Why am I not drinking
05:21more tea? Next we have mango green tea, apple green tea, peach green tea, apple black tea. Let's see.
05:30That is so good. I was not expecting to like that at all. That is really delicious. Next we have the
05:38apple oolong tea. I don't think I know what oolong tastes like so I want to compare it to the apple
05:44black tea. I like the oolong tea less because it tastes more like traditional tea. It's very like
05:51leafy, greeny, I don't know. All of those words are coming to mind. This one has a much more subtle
05:58tea flavor. Then there's the peach oolong tea and the lychee punch. Some of these also have chunks of
06:05fruit at the bottom. I assume it's the fruit that we're drinking but I'm unsure. It doesn't look
06:10very recognizable to me. For something named punch I was expecting like a stronger more intense
06:16flavor but it's actually really subtle. I don't know if I like this one as much just because I
06:21want it to be more in your face. Bubbleology offers similar fruit flavors. We'll start with the mango
06:26fruit tea. I love mango flavored things. Sometimes they are too sweet but this one actually have got the
06:32balance pretty good. I'm a fan. Here we have a white peach tea. Oh that's good. That might be the best
06:38one I've tried yet. It's like a gentle flavor. Like a peach iced tea but a really subtle delicate one.
06:45Then we have passion fruit. They are making a lot of these fresh in store at Bubbleology so I think
06:51the amount of syrup that you get can vary depending on the place you go to or just who's making your
06:55drink. Feels like with the passion fruit it's heavier on the syrup but I don't think that's a bad thing.
06:59It's reminding me of like the passion fruit J2O's that I would drink when I was a child. I miss J2O's.
07:05Next up we have our lychee. Again I don't think lychee is a thing that I've had like a ton of
07:11as a flavor before but it's just quite like gently fruity. Our last fruit flavor is the apple tea.
07:17It's apple-y but in that kind of like fake candy way. I don't hate it but it's also not my favorite way
07:23of consuming apple.
07:27If I had to guess I think in America people probably order taro milk teas, brown sugar milk teas
07:35and maybe even the matcha milk teas the most. It just seems like they might have already seen these
07:40flavors other places so it's like really easy to taste test those. They seem like really popular
07:46flavors here in America so those are my picks. We definitely love our bubble tea here in the UK and
07:52that's becoming more the case every day. In terms of the most popular flavors in the UK I think I've
07:56picked out a few of them here. We do just love our standard milk tea here in the UK although that
08:00can mean different things depending on where you get your tea. At Bubbleology they don't have just
08:04one milk tea option. You can either get jasmine or assam tea. Jasmine is a much milder taste, assam is
08:10much stronger. We also love our tiger milk over here or brown sugar tea. That's this one here where you
08:14get your brown sugar syrup which has that nice caramel flavor along with the milk tea and you can mix it all up
08:19once it's in the cup. And of course taro tea is another one that's really popular here in the UK.
08:23Let's get into some exclusive items from both boba chains. We have a bunch of milk tea flavors at Kung
08:28Fu Tea. There's their regular KF milk tea, the Thai milk tea, the taro milk green tea, the winter melon
08:35coconut milk tea, the malted black milk tea. I am a big fan of malted milkshakes so I feel like I would
08:42really like this one. I don't know if the malt flavor is translating super well with just plain
08:51tea. And then we have the coffee milk tea. I'm a coffee lover. I feel like if I was going to get a
08:58bubble tea coffee would be the way to go for me.
09:01Yeah that is so good. It tastes different. Obviously it's not just straight up coffee
09:10but I expected it to taste mostly like coffee because it's such a strong flavor but you can
09:15definitely feel the tea flavors in there. Here are the UK exclusive milk tea flavors. Firstly we have
09:22a matcha milk tea. Yeah it's actually not that bad. This one is a quite gentle flavor. Obviously I think
09:28the amount of milk in there is diluting the matcha quite a lot. Next up is an Assam milk tea. Assam is
09:33one type of tea leaf. It's actually fairly common in the UK in the sense that it's part of the blend
09:37that makes up English breakfast tea. Usually they add things like Salon and maybe Kenyan tea in there
09:42as well. I don't know if I've really had just Assam straight on its own before so let's get stuck in.
09:47It is kind of like just having the milkiest cup of breakfast tea that I've ever had. When she described
09:52this as the strong flavor compared to jasmine I was expecting much stronger tea flavor actually.
09:56Still quite gentle. Obviously very milky, very diluted but still quite refreshing.
10:00Next up is a chocolate milk tea. Somewhere between chocolate milkshake and a really bad cold hot
10:07chocolate. I had high hopes for this one. I thought this would be a nice decadent chocolate milk but
10:12no unfortunately not for me. Another one I'm surprised to see on the exclusive list is a vanilla tea.
10:19Still not a very strong flavor but in a less offensive way than the chocolate was. I think a gentle
10:25vanilla taste is something that you can get away with in a way that you can't do that with chocolate.
10:28This almost reminds me of like a mini milk ice cream and I mean that in like a kind nostalgic
10:33way you know. They still love a mini milk. They're great. And then finally we have a jasmine tea.
10:38Like I say this one was advertised as a stronger tea taste and that wasn't very strong and they have
10:44been true to their word in that this is weaker but almost to the point of just having zero flavor
10:48whatsoever. This is kind of just like having a big cup of milk with some ice cubes in it. Admittedly
10:54I like my tea quite strong. I do think if you want a kind of milk tea from one of these places
10:58I think if you're a Brit and you can handle your breakfast tea just go for Assam. I think this is
11:02going to be too weak for you. Moving on to the milk strike drinks. These all contain lactate milk which
11:08is just lactose free milk and they also have those wow bubbles which are the tapioca pearls caramelized
11:13with brown sugar. We've got the red bean wow. This one has red bean paste I believe in it.
11:21Let's taste it. It is thick. I can barely mix. For me this one is a texture thing that's not really
11:31working for me. The beans do taste good. I like how they're very subtly sweet. It's not too much but
11:37the texture with the tapioca pearls is just not it for me. It's a little weird. Next we have the
11:43chai milk. The herbal jelly wow. I don't know what that means which means that we should taste it.
11:50That's pretty cool. It has a very subtle flavor to the point where I can't even tell what it's
11:57supposed to taste like. It's very very soft but that jelly texture is kind of amazing. Great great mouthfeel
12:05with the jelly texture. I really like that. The flavor though I can't tell what it is. And lastly we have
12:12the ginger milk. Bubbleology has a specials menu that has quite a few interesting exclusive flavors.
12:17The first one is the aforementioned tiger tea or brown sugar milk. See if I can get any more of that
12:22syrup at the bottom to dissolve. I can see why this is one of the most popular ones in the UK.
12:27It's got a real like caramel sweetness to it but it's good. This one is a peach berry tea. This one
12:33actually comes by default with some popping boba in there as well. This is pretty good. I like it. I like
12:39the peach tea in its regular form. I'm trying to figure out which berry they've added to this to
12:42give it that red color because the peach one on its own was quite white. I think it's the raspberry
12:46so it's kind of like a peach raspberry combination. I'm not 100% sure but I think the flavor inside of
12:51the popping boba is also strawberry so you're kind of getting like a double berry effect with your peach
12:56which honestly is quite nice. It's pretty refreshing. Next up we have a Biscoff Bliss tea. I've been over this
13:02before on Food Wars. I'm not the biggest fan of Biscoff as a flavor so for me it's not the most blissful
13:07beverage but I'm willing to be proven wrong. You get the flavor of Biscoff for sure. Earlier on with
13:13the Oreo one I said maybe they could have crushed up Oreos and put them in there and it would have
13:17been nice. They've done that with this and it sucks. It's really bad. It's a Biscoff flavored tea that has
13:25like a lot of mushy lumps in it which yeah not the one. This is a fun one. This is the banoffee pie tea.
13:32For those who don't know what banoffee pie is it's a banana and toffee flavored pie. I personally love
13:38a banoffee pie as a dessert. It's one of the best desserts in my opinion. It's very bananary. I'm not
13:44getting a lot of the toffee from that but I think if you're advertising it as banoffee pie it needs to
13:48have a bit more zhuzh than that you know. Next up we have the Nojito. So the name Nojito is the reference
13:54to the fact that it's kind of like a non-alcoholic mojito cocktail. So it's kind of like a lime and mint
13:59flavored bubble tea. I'm gonna say visually this does not look the most appealing. It kind of looks
14:05like a pond in a cup. I mean it is quite tasty. I'm not really getting any lime from this which I do
14:10think is a core component of a mojito. The pearls in this one are actually some of the popping pearls
14:14and I think they have like a blueberry flavor to them. Next up we have a vanilla chai. Not getting
14:20much vanilla. It's like got most of the key components of a chai but they're all just dialed
14:24down to like one on the volume notch. Just cramp it up a little bit guys. And then finally we have
14:29a Bobatella. I am not an expert but I'm gonna guess that this is a Nutella version of a boba tea.
14:36This is what I wanted the chocolate milk to taste like and the chocolate milk tasted nothing like
14:40this. This one actually has more of like a homogenous flavor to it in a way like the chocolate
14:46actually feels like it's kind of bonded to the milk more. Pretty good. I like that. Next we have
14:51the milk cap drinks so they all have this foamy layer of milk on top. They describe the milk cap
14:56as subtly salty. That gives me pause but I'm keeping an open mind. We've got the matcha milk cap,
15:04the winter melon tea cap, sunshine pineapple tea cap. This one looks like it actually separated a bit.
15:11I wonder if it's because it's just I think fruit tea so it broke down a little easier than the ones
15:17with milk in the drink. I'm nervous but like sweet and salty goes together.
15:23It's not terrible. I'm just surprised that they describe the milk cap as subtly salty because it's
15:29salty. Like I can it's front and center. It's definitely strange but it's really working for me.
15:35And lastly we have the oolong tea wow milk cap. Here we have the classic tea flavors. We've got the KF
15:42green tea, the KF black tea, and the KF oolong tea. Here are the bubbleology fruit teas. We'll start with
15:48the strawberry tea. That's pretty good. It's not like the most natural tasting thing I've ever had.
15:54Next up we have raspberry. It's not bad. I'm just like not getting a lot of raspberry from this
15:59to the point where I'm like maybe we've slightly mislabeled these and this might be raspberry.
16:04I'm going to jump ahead a tea real quick. This one we thought was pomegranate. Let's find out.
16:09That's still kind of inconclusive. We think this is raspberry and this is pomegranate. Honestly it
16:17could be the other way around because I'm not getting much flavor from either of those. And
16:22then this one is passion fruit and cucumber. I'm getting the passion fruit. I'm not really
16:27getting much cucumber. Although honestly I'm not mad about that because when I heard that there was
16:31cucumber in it I was a bit like why would they put cucumber in it? Passion fruit is already tasty.
16:35And they haven't overdone the cucumber which for me is a good thing. Kung fu tea also has these
16:39punches which are teas mixed with lemonade. So we've got the strawberry lemonade, the guava punch.
16:46This one has a ton of chia seeds floating around in it. I don't know why but I do want to taste it
16:53because I love guava. I love the taste of the tea. Hate all of the chia seeds. I feel like there's just
17:01too many. It's just like a mouthful of slimy chia seeds but that tea tastes really delicious and fresh.
17:07Then we have the lychee black tea. The tropical punch. This one has mango popping boba in it which
17:16I really want to try. It's the kind of boba that has like a little bit of juice in it when you bite
17:21into it. That's really good. Really refreshing. Ah! There's the puddle of juice. These are good.
17:32Although it has the texture of a contact which is off-putting. And then we have the rose hip lemonade.
17:37Bubbleology in the UK has a bubble fizz range which is carbonated tea. We only got one today which was the
17:43tropical mango and passion. I like the sound of this one. I like fizzy drinks. I like tea. It's
17:47checking a lot of boxes on paper. It's advertised as tropical mango and passion fruit but the main
17:53flavor that I'm getting from this is mango. It's reminding me a lot of a mango Rubicon which is one of the
17:57best fizzy drinks so they're doing that well. This one also by default comes with some more of the
18:01popping pearls. Kung fu tea also makes these drinks called slushes which are their teas blended with
18:07ice. So we've got the cocoa lava slush, the taro slush, the caribbean breeze slush. This one seems
18:14right up my alley. I would order this every day. It's so good. Nothing that I've tasted today even if
18:21it might be tastes too artificial. Like this just tastes like fresh squeezed fruit juice
18:27and ice blended together. This is my favorite thing I've tried today. And we also have the
18:32passion fruit slush. We have one exclusive coffee option from Bubbleology in the UK and it's this
18:37one. The caramel frappe. That's not too bad. It's more on maybe like the caramel iced latte side of
18:42things rather than a frappe which in my mind is like creamier or maybe has whipped cream on it. I'm more
18:47just worried about the effect the caffeine is going to have on me after the amount of sugar that I've
18:51already consumed today. And here we have some coffee options from kung fu tea. We have a latte that's
18:57iced and a hot coffee. One thing I'm realizing tasting all these drinks is that these boba shops
19:03are doing more than just bubble tea and I don't think I realized because you can get coffee there,
19:08juices there, not just teas. You can get lemonades, you can get slushes. All of these options are
19:15really pleasing to me and I can definitely see myself going to boba shops more to try out other things.
19:20Kung fu tea also has canned teas that they sell in their stores. Here we have the green tea peach
19:26which is so cute because it has princess peach on it. Next we have the Thai milk tea and we also have
19:33brown sugar milk tea. I am interested to see if there's any major difference in flavor when it comes to
19:39the canned teas versus the teas made in-house. So I have a Thai milk tea here and I want to compare it to
19:46the canned Thai milk tea.
19:50The canned Thai milk tea is sweeter than the one made in store for sure. That is so strange. It's also a
19:57completely different color. I don't know if you can see. It's like a bright orange brown color compared to
20:04the one made in store. This color I think is more consistent with what Thai tea looks like in real life.
20:10So it's interesting that the one in store is so much lighter but they're both good. This one is just a lot sweeter and has no toppings.
20:16There are also some differences when it comes to the types of milk you can get on offer at both chains.
20:21In the UK, Bubbleology offers you a choice between an original creamer, organic soya milk, organic oat milk and organic whole milk.
20:28And Kung Fu tea offers lactate and milk powder. They've been experimenting with alternative milks but only at select locations so far.
20:35When it comes to toppings for your tea in the UK, we have a few options. At Bubbleology, you can either choose to get extra tapioca pearls, you can get flavored jelly or you can get popping boba.
20:44Speaking of popping boba, you can also buy it by the jar. They have six flavors on option. We have a blueberry, we have strawberry, we have lychee, we have mango, passion fruit and apple.
20:55Let's try some of the strawberry. You get the strawberry flavor. Something about it being in the jar, it definitely has a bit more like sliminess to it when compared to it.
21:05Just being in a drink. It isn't super pleasant. If I can be completely real for a second, I'm not a big fan of popping boba.
21:11I have the same issue with fish roe and anything else that bursts in your mouth. We probably can't get the rights to show you the clip, but there's that scene from Lord of the Rings Return of the King where Faramir is charging out to his death and Denethor is sat at his banquet hall eating cherry tomatoes and he bites into one and explodes and it's gross.
21:30And I had such a visceral reaction to that as a child that I genuinely think has put me off anything with this texture for life.
21:35So let's go through all of the topping options you can get at Kung Fu Tea. There are a lot of them. We have strawberry popping boba, brown sugar wow boba, plain boba, chia seeds, pudding, crystal boba, I don't know what that is, but I wish I tried it today.
21:49Herbal jelly, aloe jelly plus lychee crystal boba, berry crystal boba, milk cap, boba plus pudding, red bean, mango jelly plus natta jelly, brown sugar boba plus milk cap, espresso shot, grape strawberry and mango popping boba, Oreo, mango popping boba, aloe jelly, natta jelly and mango jelly.
22:05I don't think I knew what half of those were. At a lot of boba shops, you're allowed to customize your sweetness levels.
22:12So at Kung Fu Tea, 100% sugar level is their base level sweetness. That's what all the drinks come in normally unless you ask for more or less.
22:22So if you want no sweetness, that's 0%. A little sweetness is 30%. Half sweetness is 50%. Less sweetness is 70%. Extra sweetness is 120%. And the regular base sweetness is 100%.
22:37For this video, we were asked to pick our own custom bubble tea order.
22:43Honestly, when I looked at the menu, the one that jumped out to me as something that I would actually order was this one. It was the Bubble Fizz Mango Passion.
22:48As I said before, it's primarily a mango tea, but it's carbonated. And then it has some of these passion fruit pearls in there as well.
22:54I think in terms of the tea itself, the mango one was probably one of my favorite flavors.
22:59I think the other contenders maybe could have been that white peach that I really liked.
23:02Despite my fairly strong feelings on popping boba, I don't hate them that much.
23:05And I think when they're part of what is otherwise a very delicious, refreshing beverage, I'll let it slide.
23:09So here is my custom bubble tea order. I went more the coffee route.
23:15Now that I'm older, I'm not that much into the taro milk tea like I used to be.
23:21I wanted something that was close to the stuff I drink every day.
23:24So coffee definitely had to be a part of it.
23:26This is an espresso Thai tea with a milk cap and some brown sugar boba.
23:32I forgot that the milk cap was a little bit salty when I ordered this.
23:36So I don't really know how all this is going to come together, but I have faith in my decision.
23:41I feel like this is going to be good.
23:43I think that is really, really good.
23:46The salty milk cap with a creamy milk tea like this and the coffee flavor, it just all goes really well together.
23:54I like this.
23:55I think I did a good job.
23:57I would order that again.
23:58Let's compare the nutritional values of the items that are most similar.
24:02Bubble tea is generally known to have a pretty high sugar content.
24:05So I'm interested to see if there are any major differences between the chains.
24:09Bubble tea is obviously super customizable.
24:10So Bubbleology has come up with this periodic table thing to try and help you calculate the nutritional value of your drink.
24:16I don't know exactly how accurate it is, but it's all we have to go off.
24:19According to the calculator, a large taro milk tea in the UK with whole milk and tapioca pearls comes to around 321 calories.
24:26A large taro milk tea from Kung Fu Tea can be anywhere from 290 to 500 calories.
24:31According to their nutritional information, tapioca pearls alone can range anywhere from 199 to 299 calories and are full of sugar.
24:40Let's compare the price of a large drink at both chains.
24:43At Kung Fu Tea, a large taro milk tea will cost you $6.39 or £4.88.
24:48And at Bubbleology, a large taro milk tea will cost you £4.59 or $6.05.
24:54For me, it's definitely more on the expensive side as far as beverages go.
24:57But I guess in some ways you are getting kind of a snack and a drink in one.
25:01Also living in a large city like New York, everything is just expensive.
25:05Bubble tea originated in Taiwan almost 40 years ago.
25:08Two tea houses, Chun Shui Tang in Taichung and Han Lin Tea Room in Tainan, both claim to have invented it.
25:14Angela Liu, the daughter of Lu Han Che, who founded Chun Shui Tang, says her father was playing around with different toppings for iced tea
25:20when one of his staff suggested adding tapioca balls.
25:23But the founder of Han Lin Tea Room says he got the idea from a local market's dessert stalls.
25:28The two tea houses were involved in a lawsuit over who invented it that lasted over 10 years.
25:32Ultimately, the court decided it didn't matter, as bubble tea can't be patented anyway.
25:36Bubble tea first gained popularity in the U.S. in the 1990s.
25:39It was super popular in Taiwanese-American communities on the West Coast
25:43and eventually became a full-blown craze all over America.
25:47The U.K. obviously has an enormous love for tea,
25:49so it's no surprise to see that bubble tea has really taken off here in the past few years.
25:53In fact, the bubble tea market in the U.K. is expected to grow 225% in the 10 years leading up to 2032.
25:59Internet searches for bubble tea are much higher in cities with universities,
26:02which goes to show how much it's really taken off with Gen Z.
26:05Bubbleology is more of a westernized chain.
26:07It started in 2011 in Soho and at the time was the U.K.'s first standalone bubble tea spot.
26:12Today it has 69 stores in the U.K., but also has other locations in Europe, the Middle East and the U.S.
26:18It has a sort of science theme to the menu and puts a lot of emphasis on the customization options.
26:22You can customize your sweetness levels, you can get light versions of the drinks,
26:25and you can mix and match flavors to create something completely new.
26:28The creator of Bubbleology, Asad Khan, has said that they do cater more to the U.K. market.
26:31In general terms, apparently Brits favor the popping boba and jelly over the tapioca piles.
26:36Kung Fu Tea was founded in Queens, New York back in 2010 and has since become one of the most popular boba chains in America.
26:43They even founded National Bubble Tea Day, which is on April 30th.
26:46Today there are over 350 locations all around the U.S.
26:50Bubble tea is extremely popular here in the U.S.
26:53Even chains like Starbucks have tried to capitalize on its popularity.
26:56I think Dunkin' has too.
26:58In 2023, there were over 3,000 bubble tea shops in the U.S., and that number is just growing.
27:04While it is much more commonly available now in the U.K., I think for me bubble tea is still like a once-in-a-while treat rather than an everyday drink.
27:10That's partly due to the price.
27:11It is slightly more on the expensive side for a beverage and also just the amount of sugar in there as well.
27:16I don't think that's something I would necessarily want to consume every day.
27:18I was much older when I tried bubble tea for the first time with the tapioca pearls, and I did find the whole situation a little jarring.
27:27I don't think I had ever had a drink that was also something I had to chew at the same time, but I really, really enjoyed it.
27:33It's definitely one of those things that I can't have too much of.
27:36It can be extremely sweet, but it is a fun experience.
27:41So is bubble tea a drink or food?
27:44I maintain that it can be both.
27:48I do see how it can be a small little snack as well as a beverage, because if you have all of the tapioca pearls, I just feel like you're eating.
27:57You're eating something.
27:58Yeah, it's in a drink, but you're eating it.
28:01Bubble tea is definitely a drink.
28:02It's not a food.
28:03I think it's a drink that maybe has little bits of food in it, but overall still very much in the beverage camp.
28:08Bubble tea is definitely good.
28:10Blech and the cup.
28:15It's a drink.
28:16Thank you so much.
28:18It would be very much fun.
28:20It was fun, please.
28:21It's a drink.
28:21It's okay.
28:23It's anCoola hardware.
28:24Yes, that's fine.
28:25It's a drink.
28:26It40a curry is perfect.
28:27It's absolutely hiçbir desse.
28:28It's healthy.
28:30It's because the brewisara just likes a drink.
28:33It's an whiskey and a energy.
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