Last May, Starbucks teased a “texture innovation.” The reveal? Raspberry-flavored popping pearls — not quite boba, but close — dropped into a trio of bright-pink Refreshers.
A riff on classic bubble tea, a Taiwanese specialty, Starbucks’ summer-themed drinks include bright-pink pearls filled with sweet berry juice that “pop” in your mouth once bitten into. “We started with fruit pieces, but we wanted something even bolder,” Starbucks beverage developer Simon Vuong said in a statement. “So, we thought, ‘Let’s put fruit-flavored pearls in the beverage and try it out.’ It’s very fun the way it delivers the flavor when it pops in your mouth.”
Not to be confused with chewy tapioca boba, these popping pearls are thin, gel-like spheres that burst in your mouth.
Bubble tea itself was introduced to the United States in the 1990s by Taiwanese immigrants who settled in Los Angeles. The beverage was “a revolutionary invention” in Taiwan in the ‘80s because consuming food and beverages, especially cold ones, strictly for pleasure was a relatively new concept in a post-war nation, CNN reported. Today, bubble tea has expanded globally: In 2024, the bubble tea industry was valued at around $2.4 to 3.6 billion, according to several studies. Entrepreneurs and large-scale coffeehouse chains, including Dunkin’, have also eagerly jumped on the bandwagon, albeit controversially.
That same summer, another company saw an opportunity to bottle the bubble tea boom. Bobba, a Quebec-based bottled bubble tea brand, sought to capitalize on the beverage, describing its product as “the first ready-to-drink bubble tea made from an infusion of real tea and unique fruit juice pearls,” according to its official site. The brand was born after “carrying out several pieces of research on the product and its origin.”
Bobba garnered criticism online when its founders, Sébastien Fiset and Jess Frenette, appeared on a “Shark Tank”-like Canadian TV show called “Dragon’s Den,” seeking one million dollars in exchange for 18% of the company. Frenette described bubble tea as a “trendy, sugary drink” and boldly claimed that drinkers are “never quite sure about its content.” Fiset continued, saying Bobba has “transformed this beloved beverage into a convenient, healthier, ready-to-drink experience” with “three simple ingredients”: high-quality tea, fruit juice and popping fruit juice pearls.
China-born Canadian actor Simu Liu, who appeared as the show’s “first celebrity Dragon,” took issue with the business, accusing the founders of culturally appropriating bubble tea. “There’s an issue of taking something that’s very distinctly Asian in its identity and quote-unquote ‘making it better,’” Liu said on the episode.
@cbcgem This bottled bubble tea business pitches to celebrity Dragon Simu Liu and the rest of the Dragons (📺: Dragons' Den) #dragonsden #simuliu ♬ original sound - CBC Gem
"And not only do I feel like this is not happening here," he added, "but that I would be uplifting a business that is profiting off of something that feels so dear to my cultural heritage."
Clips of Bobba’s pitch made rounds across social media, sparking a conversation on the cultural cost of culinary appropriation and gentrification. The issue isn’t food evolution — in fact, food is meant to progress as our culture, environment and societies rapidly change too. Instead, it’s suggesting that a long-standing, cultural food item is relatively unknown without paying homage to its origin or deep-rooted history. What is food when it's stripped of its traditions, heritage and individuality? It’s merely a commodity — a tool of convenience and profit.
“The very core of food culture is adaptation to new environments, new palates, new people, new ingredients — and these exchanges are not always peaceful or mutually beneficial,” Jenny Dorsey, chef, food journalist and founder of the nonprofit Studio ATAO, wrote in a 2020 piece for Eater.
“Barbacoa has changed over time to include beef as a common protein choice, Spam musubi is now a well-loved Hawaiian staple, and so forth — but ignoring history in search of ‘approachability’ only serves to entrench distorted power dynamics that persist to this day.”
Dorsey was writing in the context of fast-casual restaurants that have hand-picked “trendy” food items or ingredients from specific cuisines, mass-marketed them in digestible ways and benefited from subsequent monetary gain without crediting the actual sources. There’s Chipotle and its “barbacoa,” which fails to represent authentic barbacoa technique yet “adds a marketable tinge of foreignness to [the chain’s] menu,” per Dorsey. There’s Wendy’s limited-time-only “Asian” Cashew Chicken Salad, which flaunts a vague regional label in its name because it includes ingredients like fire-roasted edamame and an equally vague Light Spicy Asian Chili Vinaigrette. There’s also Trader Joe’s and its eyebrow-raising, stereotyped line of “ethnic” foods: Trader José, Trader Ming and Trader Giotto. In 2020, the California-based retailer said it would change its product branding following a nationwide petition, but ultimately chose not to do anything. (“We want to be clear: we disagree that any of these labels are racist,” the brand said at the time.)
“It’s easy to dismiss these collective occurrences as a byproduct of capitalism, to make excuses for the middle managers who aren’t willing to risk their own necks to push back,” Dorsey wrote. “But food has always been entrenched in Western colonization, imperialism, and enslavement, and it continues to shape (and change) public opinion.
“The way we allow these national and international chains to treat a food culture implicitly shows the respect (or lack thereof) we have for the people represented by these cuisines — and it is with this backing that appropriative, white-centered food narratives can take place.”
The proliferation of such swayed narratives has only normalized the conquest and claim of various cuisines. When quick-service, fast-food restaurants have been dabbling in it unscathed, small businesses have now been emboldened to follow suit.
Earlier this year, Poda, a matcha paste launched on Kickstarter, received backlash online after its founder, Mujtaba Waseem, urged people to invest in his company.
“Let’s make matcha, but we don’t need any of this crap,” Waseem said in a now-deleted video. The so-called “crap” he was referring to included traditional Japanese tools for making matcha, including a chasen, or bamboo whisk, and a chawan, the ceramic tea bowl used to whisk matcha powder.
“Most matcha is a scam. Let me explain,” he continued. “Most matcha is stale, clumpy and made in China. What if I told you there’s a better way?”
Waseem explained that Poda’s matcha comes in a “squeezable paste format,” which is easier to mix and enjoy than traditional powdered matcha. “Ditch the clumps and try Poda,” he said.
After receiving a flood of comments criticizing Poda’s poor marketing, lack of originality (tubed matcha, like Yamasan Kyoto Uji’s Pure Matcha Paste, already exists) and questionable color, Waseem issued an apology but defended his product, saying it’s here to stay.
“I genuinely, honestly did not mean to dismiss or bash on Japanese tea traditions or culture,” he said. “I was talking about stale, oxidized matcha powder, but I completely get that it came off a very wrong way. I chose the wrong words and I really apologize for that.” Waseem also addressed his comments on China, saying his research found that “most Japanese matcha is more premium” than Chinese matcha (matcha itself originated in China during the Tang Dynasty but was refined in Japan).
Poda and Bobba are not only examples but lessons in how not to adopt, make and market foods from other backgrounds. That isn’t to say that food and its enjoyment should be restricted. Rather, it should be embraced wholly, taking into account the sources, traditions and intricacies that make certain foods so unique.
Food doesn’t need reinvention — it needs reverence.
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