INTRODUCTION

It’s 95 degrees plus humidity, the trees are screaming with cicadas, and buses packed with Chinese tourists peering out from lace-curtain-covered windows are lumbering through the intersections. Scooters whiz past at nerve-racking speeds. We’re a long way from San Francisco. And it smells like stinky tofu, because Taipei always smells like stinky tofu.

But we’re not here for stinky tofu. We’re here at Chen San Ding for the chewy tapioca balls known as boba. (No, they’re not “blobs.”) The batch we’ve got in our hands comes swimming in deep brown syrup at the bottom of a 16-ounce plastic cup; a pour of ice-cold milk on top means beads of condensation start forming instantly. A few brisk stirs of a wide straw send dark plumes upward through the thick, malty milk, and the drink ranges from white to deep brown and beige.

Soft, warm boba zip up the straw along with the deep caramelized flavor of the syrupy milk, rich like heavy cream. It’s like a drinkable crème brûlée, or flan—but it’s liquid and chewy all at once. The tapioca is firm, dense, and bouncy; the Taiwanese call the texture QQ.

It’s perfect. The best thing we’ll taste that day.

But to us, boba is much more than a drink. It’s like American apple pie or Beyoncé’s Lemonade. There’s the thing itself, and all the lore and backstory to go with it, too. Not to over-romanticize a simple drink, but boba is an experience—about history, culture, and identity. And if you look hard enough into that cloudy cup, you’ll probably learn something about Asia, about America, and, we think, about our society’s future.

Like most Asian Americans our age, we first encountered boba as kids. It was the early ’90s and boba was fresh off the boat from Taiwan, the place our parents had left behind to raise us here in the U.S. We loved everything about it. It was creamy, sweet, colorful—what’s not to like? And it was playful. We loved using the oversize straw to suck up the chewy tapioca lying at the bottom of the cup. The best of us could finish both the tapioca and liquid part of the beverage at the exact same time. It’s a skill. As the lone Asian kids at our respective suburban American schools, this was our thing. It made us feel like we had something to call our own, but we also wanted to share it with the rest of the world. It’s like having the salted caramel ice cream from Bi-Rite Creamery and never shutting up about it. OK, we’re Asian, so we kinda did shut up about it…until now.

As we’ve grown up, we’ve realized that boba remains a bridge between the two cultures we come from. It’s from Taiwan, after which it spread to Japan and China and throughout Asia, but it’s also here to stay in New York, San Francisco, L.A., Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, and your local neighborhood. The food Medici give all the love to the finer things like coffee, wine, and chocolate. But where’s the love? For every Blue Bottle, Momofuku, or Starbucks, there is a boba shop that is changing the way Americans consume beverages.

At our Boba Guys stores, we represent, but also reinterpret the sweet after-school drink of our childhoods. Our Classic Milk Tea (this page) captures the essence of our beloved childhood boba. But we’re also known for our Strawberry Matcha Latte (this page), which is delicious and, OK, looks sexy on Instagram, like a tricolor Rothko with polka dots. Or the “Dirty” Horchata (this page), a coffee-fueled riff on the rice-milk-and-cinnamon drink we fell for at the taquerias in our neighborhood. We’re trying to expand the definition of what boba is, for everybody.

On any given afternoon at our Mission District location you’ll find a 60-year-old abuelita crushing a “Dirty” Horchata with boba next to a stylish 30-something Everlane-wearing mom sipping one of our colorful seasonal tea frescas, her toddler wandering around with a strawberry rice milk and bumping into a Supreme-dripping Hypebeast sucking down a Classic Milk Tea. We have a drink in our stores for just about everyone, and in this book, we’ll show you how to make them all, with recipes as diverse as our community. It’s all about bridging cultures, our mission since coming out as a pop-up in 2011. Coffee had its revolution over a decade ago. We started one for boba.

Boba started in Asia, came to America, and is being remixed and repackaged in a way that can speak to both old and new generations. It’s like the Rihanna song “FourFiveSeconds” with Kanye. And Paul McCartney. In a black and white music video. It’s the best of every world. We’re culturally wildin’. That’s what we Americans do best, right? It’s the American Future.

—Andrew and Bin
aka the Boba Guys

Our first store in the Mission District of San Francisco, where it all began.

The Feng Chia Night Market in Taichung, Taiwan. Known as the largest night market in Taiwan and home to countless drinks stalls.