Bubble Tea - Types

Types

• 泡沫紅茶 (pinyin: pàomò hóngchá): "foam red tea", by direct translation, is the drink that is more appropriate for the more literal name of "bubble tea"; however, the English name, foam tea, is not used much throughout Asia. Consequently, in non-Chinese-speaking Asian countries, "bubble tea" is commonly used to refer to this drink. There is no tapioca in this particular drink. To create this, vendors mix hot or warm tea (in this case, black tea) with syrup or sugar and ice cubes into a cocktail shaker. Then they would shake the shaker either by hand or by machine before it is served. The resulting tea would be covered by a layer of foam or froth and the tea would have a light foamy feel to the taste.
• 泡沫奶茶 (pinyin: pàomò nǎichá): "foam milk tea". One of the many variants that is prepared the same way as the "foam red tea", well-shaken before serving.
• 珍珠奶茶 or 珍奶 for short) (pinyin: zhēnzhū nǎichá): "pearl milk tea", or more commonly referred to as bubble tea by most English speakers and overseas Chinese speakers. The "pearl" name originally referred to the small 1/12" tapioca pearls added to the drink. Though most modern vendors serve only the bigger 1/4" pearls, they still use "pearl tea" as the name.
• 波霸奶茶 (pinyin: bōbà nǎichá): "bubble milk tea" and also commonly referred to as boba tea by English speakers and Asian Americans. The name refers to the variant with the bigger, 1/4" tapioca pearls.
• 黑珍珠奶茶 (pinyin: hēi zhēnzhū nǎichá): "black pearl milk tea". Since the bigger 1/4" tapioca pearls are separately sold as "black pearls" (黑珍珠) in markets, this name was the logical first choice and is more popular with the consumers of the drink. "Boba" (波霸) is an alternative name that is less commonly used these days.
• (奶)茶珍珠 (pinyin: (nǎi) chá zhēnzhū): "(milk) tea pearl" (less common).
• 泡泡茶 (pinyin: pào pào chá): used interchangeably with 珍珠奶茶 to refer to "bubble tea" in Singapore.