Boba or Pearl Tea?

Checked a new lesson on Chinese Pod today regarding "Pearl Tea".

I enjoyed reading all those comments, and mostly agreed with what "elee8888cn" said there that "Pearl Tea was originally invented in Taiwan in 1983 and has became one of the most famous branches of the Bubble Tea. It was later introduced to Chinese and US market by a couple of Taiwanese owned cafes..." .

However, since Pearl Tea was invented by Mr.Liu(2) Han(4)jie(4) 刘汉介 in my hometown, Tai (2) Zhong(1) 台中(the biggest city in central Taiwan), and I had had at least 5 tons of all kinds of pearl tea from mid 80's to 2002 (I moved to the U.S. in 2002), I think I have to add a little bit history to the commonly called "Boba" tea (it refers to the bigger sized bubbles added in the tea).

The original meaning of 波霸 Bo(1) ba(4)，is quite a condescending nickname for women who have HUGE breasts.

• The word "波 bo(1)" means "tits" or "boobs" in Cantonese (since it's a nickname from Hong Kong, and Cantonese is the main dialect in Hong Kong area).
• The 2nd word "霸 ba(4)" means huge or gigantic.
• Hence "波霸“ actually means "HUGH BOOBS" in Cantonese (now you know why I said it's a condescending word for females).
  

Why it's from Hong Kong? Why huge boobs?

In the late 80's, there was a very famous actress in Hong Kong named "葉子媚 ye(4) zi(3) mei(4)", who was famous mostly because of her 36F cup sized breasts. As you may know, for most Asian women, they tend to have flatter breasts. So, when this Hongkong-nese "Pamela Anderson" type of actress showed up in media, people soon gave her a nickname "波霸“ to compliment on her breasts (sure, there were also all kinds of rumors said that she'd done some plastic surgery to make them that big, but, hey, it was last 80's... and we're not going to discuss this here).

Anyway, after the "Pearl Tea" was so popular in Taiwan for a few years, people seemed to get tired of it. Therefore, one bartender at a tea house in 台南 tai(2) nan(2) (a big city in southern Taiwan) was "inspired" by that actress' popularity, and made some special orders of multi-layered "pearl", "bubble","tapioca" (which-ever you'd like to call it), and sold it with the also super-sized straw (so you can suck the bubbles up smoothly), tried to make this special tea drink a new life.

BOOM! Big success!

Then the name "Boba" tea spreaded around the world; people enjoy drinking it without knowing it's actually named after an actress with speical talents.

More info on this actress (or if you want to see what she look like), check this link on Wiki:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Yip

I personally prefer "Pearl Tea 珍珠奶茶“ though. It is just more elegantly original. I'm so proud of Pearl Tea. Not only it's invented in my hometown, but it has become one of my best dishes when it comes to party time!