The Rise of Bubble Tea in Japan
While bubble tea has been sold in Japan since the 1990s, it's become very popular in recent years.
Bubble tea was first made in Taiwan in the 1980s. It's usually made from tea mixed with syrup, and filled with tapioca balls that are drunk through a wide straw.
Japan imported 2,928 metric tons of tapioca in 2018, an increase of 143% compared to 2017. And in the first half of 2019, the country had already imported 4,471 tons of tapioca.
In its 2018 list of popular words among Japanese teenage girls, AMF Inc. found that "tapiru" – a newly invented word meaning "to go drink bubble tea" – was the most popular word, and "tapioca" was the most popular object.
In August 2019, J-Cast News reported that there were more than 20 bubble tea shops just in Tokyo's Harajuku area, and a "Tapioca Land" attraction even opened in the area that month. In February, a cafe chain in Tokyo even began selling "tapioca beer."
Writing for Nippon.com, Hitoto Tae says bubble tea may be getting so popular because of increasing Japanese tourism to Taiwan and the sharing of bubble tea photos on social media. Japanese visitors to Taiwan increased from about 1 million in 2009 to almost 2 million in 2018.
Bubble tea is also easy to make, and very profitable to sell. It's now sold at "family restaurant" chains, coffee shops, hamburger restaurants and even ramen shops in Japan.
However, some people have begun to worry that bubble tea isn't very healthy, and the big straws and cups create a lot of garbage.
