11/13/2018 0 Comments Global food series-1: Bubble TeaI have often heard the lamentation that globalization is going to kill many traditional cultures, together with their unique food cultures. While some of the concerns are not unreasonable, I have a more optimistic view that cultures are like living creatures that readily adapt to changes in the environment and time. Instead of staying unchanged like an artifact in a museum reminiscent of the past, cultures evolve and develop over time as people embody the culture at present. Thus the best way to protect the culture, in my opinion, is not to preserve it in a museum or a special site, but to live it and incorporate it as part of daily life practices.
But enough comment of the potential negative impact of globalization. I would like to see globalization as the fuel and soil for innovations that give rise to exciting, tasty, and popular food cultures that would not have existed without the communications of different cultures and increasingly frequent migration among different cultures. I will start by describing some food that I consider as “global” because a big portion of credit for their creation need to be given to the clashes of different cultures thanks to the globalization dating back to nearly a thousand years ago. Bubble Tea Have you ever had a bubble tea? This sweetened beverage made with tea, milk, and tapioca pearls (“bubbles”) has achieved great popularity not only in its birthplace, Taiwan, but also in mainland China, most Southeast Asian countries, and many Western countries including UK and United States. Many people associate bubble tea with Taiwan, but you are also likely able to find it in many other Asian restaurants. It may be somewhat high in calorie and not very healthy, depending on how sweet it is and the ingredients used to make it, but nevertheless it is popular among young people in many areas of the world. As I mentioned, bubble tea was born in Taiwan, so why do I call it a global food? Well, let’s think about how it was created. Tea as a plant is native to East Asia, and tea trees have been grown in north Burma and southwest China for over four thousand years, making tea an affordable and widely accepted beverage in China starting from 2500 BC. Drinking tea has been a common practice in mainland China as well as some neighboring Southeastern Asian regions long before the western world knew its existence. Eventually, tea was brought into Europe through trade, and in Tibet as well as Yunnan (a southeastern province in China), you can find some historical trails called ancient road of tea and horse that used to be the main route of shipping tea to faraway lands, including UK. The long-distance transportation and the rarity of such products in Britain increased tea’s value (as well as price), so tea soon became a beverage mostly enjoyed by the British court and the aristocrat class. When the Great Britain explorers started their voyage to colonize many tropical/subtropical countries like India, they made it much easier to trade tea with these areas. However, even though tea is mostly enjoyed by itself in China, the flavor of tea might be a little strong and bitter to the taste of most Westerners. Inspired by the custom of adding dairy products (e.g. milk, butter) into tea in regions of Southeastern Asia (e.g. Tibet, India) where dairy products can be easily acquired, the British people quickly adopted the custom of adding milk and other sweeteners into tea to make it more palatable. “British-style milk tea” has become a cultural tradition of the country, and interestingly, made its way back into Asia through colonization. In Hong Kong as well as Singapore, former regions colonized by the British, the habit of drinking milk tea took roots and was incorporated into the daily life of people there even after the British have left. The frequent communication between Hong Kong, Singapore, and many East Asian regions including Taiwan promoted the popularity of milk tea, which laid the foundation of bubble tea. What about the other half of the concoction, the bubbles? Bubbles are made of tapioca, a starch extract from cassava root, which originated from Brazil, but carried to West Indies, Africa and Asia by Portuguese and Spanish explorers. The plant thrives in tropical climate, so it has been widely cultivated in the Southeastern Asia. The starch from this plant can be used as a thickener in savory dishes, but is also used widely in dessert. The texture of processed tapioca is teasingly chewy, and the starch itself becomes transparent when cooked, adding visual appeal to dessert as well as a contrast to the sweetness of most Southeastern Asian desserts. As you may see, the creation of bubble tea is nothing but a simple combination of milk tea and little tapioca balls, and the popularity of milk tea and using tapioca in desserts have set up a perfect stage for bubble tea to debut. But none of these came out of vacuum. Without the worldwide spread of tea and different ways of drinking tea, I am doubtful that people in Taiwan would have accepted milk tea easily, since in Taiwan, under the influence of Han culture, like in mainland China, tea is mostly enjoyed plain. Without the cultivation of cassava roots in Southeastern Asia thanks to the Portuguese and Spanish explorers, tapioca would not be so accessible and widely used. If you look at all the links that finally gave birth to the extremely popular beverage today, you may realize that many, if not all, of these links are not possible without the global migration and exchange of products, customs, and ideas. That is why I say, bubble tea is truly a global food.
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