Today we are going to talk about a drink called "QQ milky milky extremely delicious to the
point that Miē pū tea" aka bubble tea or boba tea depending on where you live.
As you might have noticed the (name of) this drink is outrageously flamboyant, but you
know what is also flamboyant?
Boba liberalism!
But what is it?
Let's find out, with people also ask.
Hi, I am Shao, Welcome to what people also ask, where I search something seemingly obvious on Google
and share with you some of its PAA, aka People Also Ask, which is a feature telling you what
other people also search on Google that related to your query.
Today I want to talk about drink that is very famous in in Taiwan called boba tea or bubble tea, and I will tell you why
it is also called "QQ milky milky extremely delicious to the point that Miē pū tea"
at the end of the video.
So obviously we have to first talk about what it is with the first PAA "What is bubble tea made out of?
which is published by...Let me check my note
which is actually a script...it's all scripted
the answer is extracted from an article titled " Make Boba for Bubble Tea" published
by Scientific American, which is the oldest continuously published monthly popular science
magazine in the United States founded by an inventor and publisher Rufus M. Porter in 1845.
According to this article, Boba tea or bubble tea is a sweetened drink made of flavored tea, milk, and bubbles aka boba.
Which is a definition that I, as a Taiwanese approve of.
According to this article, translucent, squishy bubbles called boba are very easy to make.
You only need three ingredients: tapioca flour, water, and brown sugar.
This article provides a child-friendly recipe for boba-making, it also shared some interesting
scientific fun facts that I had never thought of.
Fun Fact one: Unlike wheat flour, which contains starches, protein, and fiber, tapioca flour
contains only starch.
No wonder it's so chewy.
Fun Fact 2: tapioca flour behaves differently in hot and cold water.
Starch particles are created when a large number of glucose units are joined together.
When these particles are mixed with cold water they disperse and float around in the water,
but the particles do not change.
When you leave the mixture out the water will eventually evaporate and you will have your
starch particles again.
However, Starch particles swell and break apart when mixed with hot water.
The smaller pieces then create new connections and form a network that can hold water.
This process is called starch gelatinization.
When this solution cools it becomes more gel-like.
With time it will lose water and become stiffer.
But no matter how long you wait it will not turn into starch particles again.
And understand this is very important when you try to make boba, because if you use the
wrong temperature of water at the wrong time then you won't get your boba whatsoever.
Since we have learned some science about boba, I think it's a good time
that we also learn some historyabout it.
Like "Who invented Boba?" which is the next PAA we are gonna talk about
The answer of this question is extracted from an article titled "Boba tea: How did it
start?" published by CNN Travel.
According to this article, it happened in 1988, one day, the product development manager
in Chun Shui Tang teahouse , Lin Hsiu Hui sitting in a staff meeting and had brought
with her a typical Taiwanese dessert called fen yuan,which is a sweetened tapioca pudding.
Just for fun she poured the tapioca balls into her Assam iced tea and drank it.
Everyone at the meeting loved the drink and it quickly outsold all of their other iced
teas within a couple of months, soon bubble tea makes up 80-90% of their sales ever since.
I am not surprised because it's super addictive, but Why is bubble tea addictive?
which is the next PAA we are gonna talk about
The answer is extracted from an article titled "The Main Reason Why Bubble Tea is Addictive
& It’s Not Due to the Pearls" published by goodyfeed.com, which is a Singapore online magazine.
I just read their about page, it sounds like a Singapore version of BuzzFeed.
According to this article, the main reason that bubble tea is addictive is the caffeine
in the tea.
I want to say I do not agree with the thesis of this article, because if that is the case,
the sale of Chun Shui Tang teahouse should be evenly
distributed to all caffeinated drinks right? It won't be like...
bubble tea make up 80-90% of their sales.
I give kudo to this article because it did point out how much caffeine
you can potentially ingest by drinking bubble tea.
It cited statistics from caffeineinformer.com, in which they tested ten samples of boba teas
, the amount of caffeine in each cup is about 100 to 160 mg, which average out to
about 130 mg per cup.
To put you into perspective, some coffee only has about 100 mg per cup.
So you can potentially drink more caffeine by drinking bubble tea compared to drinking coffee.
Well, that sure is crazy, but it won't kill you, right?
Let's talk about another two PAAs : Can tapioca pearls kill you?, and Does tapioca contain cyanide?
The first time I saw this PAA on the Google search result, I was like, what a dumb question.Does
tapioca contain cyanide?
Give me a break.
But then I realized I was being ignorant by assuming people asking this question out of ignorance.
No question is a dumb question, and (the reason) people ask this question on google is that
tapioca that we use are refined products of cassava which
indeed contains cyanide precursors.
So the answer to this question is extracted from an article titled "TAPIOCA AND CYANIDE"
published by todayifoundout.com which is a derivative website from a youtube channel
based on the idea that you should try to learn something new every day call today I found out.
According to this article, cassava can be split into two general classifications: sweet
and bitter.
Although both contain cyanogenic glycosides, which are chemical compounds contained in
foods that release hydrogen cyanide when digested by humans.
bitter cassava may have as much as 400 mg of cyanogenic glycosides per kilo, potentially
8 times more toxic than sweet cassava.
But as a boba tea drinker, you actually don't need to worry about it too much.
As it turns out, Cyanogenic glycosides are always present in a startling number of plants
cultivated for human consumption that include almonds, lima beans, and cassava.
We don’t get sick from eating these products because, by the time they reach us, the toxins
have been eliminated.
Eaten grade cassava, for example, usually has been properly treated in a labor-intensive
process that may include roasting, soaking, or fermentation, so by the time we get to
eat it, the cyanide content is negligible.
Alright, So boba is not that bad, but you know what is bad?
Boba Liberalism!
But wait what is that?
Which is the next PAA we are going to talk about.
The answer to this question is extracted from an article titled "The Rise(and Stall)
of Boba Generation" published by Eater, which is a food and dining website
owned by Vox Media.
This is a very long article that started off by elaborately discussing the cultural significance
of bubble tea to the Asian community, then the author goes on to explain how bubble tea
and " food porn" in general has become a symbol for Asian American to rectify their perceived
differences in western countries.
It's like, you might not like some aspects of my culture, but who can hate Bubble Tea? Everyone LOVEs it!
But this kind of tendency to pursue more positive representation in mainstream media by highlight the more
“western friendly” aspect of Asian culture while selectively ignore other aspects of
ethnic issues is criticized by some activists in Asian Community.
They call this kind of activism boba liberalism.Because it's like boba tea.
A lot of sugar, a lot of calories, but no nutrition, no substance
For example, while some Asian American appraise the Asian representation in “ Crazy Rich Asian”
the critics of Boba liberalism tend to think the film is a bad representation
because it selectively highlight the life style of middle and higher class Asian population
and to some degree reinforce the “model minority myth”
Another criticism of boba liberalism is that if you focus on chasing the positive representation
of your home countries or your countries of origin, you might be reluctant to speak out to other social
issues of your home countries(like poverty and, in some case, human right infringement)
you might even try to suppress negative coverage of your home countries
just because you don't want your home countries’ image being hurt. We all know that happens.
If you want to learn mor e about what is boba liberalism, I include a lot of further reading
in the description.Very interesting concept.
At the end of the video, I want to explain why some Taiwanese start calling Boba tea,
"QQ milky milky extremely delicious to the point that Miē pū tea."
That's because if you haven't noticed yet, recent years a lot of boba tea shops in Taiwan
are trying to be clever about naming their drink and sometimes it can be very
annoying because now when you go to the boba shop and look at the menu
you probably can't tell what are they selling anymore.
In response, a Taiwanese comedian ChillSeph made a video making fun of this situation by
calling boba tea "QQ milky milky extremely delicious to the point that Miē pū tea"
and a lot of Taiwanese started to calling boba tea that name ever since.
I will put the link in the description, it's really funny.
Anyway, see you later.