Boba World, Westwood – that’s where it all went down for me. A life long disdain for tapioca, gone in several small slurps. One boba, two boba, three – Slurrrrp! Slurrrp! As a child, tapioca was the magic word to make me scrunch up my face, turn the other direction and run like a mad coyote in the wind. These days I can’t get enough it. Just the other day I cruised over to a local Vietnamese owned spot to grab a cool Green Tea Boba smoothie. As I was slurping up the tapioca balls I started to wonder what caused the change of heart after so many years. It took only a few minutes for brain freeze to kick in and knock me from my train of thought. Who cares? As far as I’m concerned boba’s good and unsurprisingly there are several Americans who are so out of touch with this delightful treat On my quest to find some gentle facts for the timid tourist exploring boba for the first time this is what I uncovered:
- Wikipedia notes that Boba (pronounced Buo Ba in Mandarin) is the tapioca found at the bottom of bubble tea or boba milk tea. The literal meaning for the word is slang for “big breast/nipple” as the tapioca balls resemble a mother’s nipple. Hmm – I never thought so, but that’s certainly something to chew on. Can someone confirm?
- Boba balls are made from Cassava.
- There is a village in Vas county Hungary named Boba. Wonder if boba drinks are popular there?
- A now obsolete Italian word – boba, means “stupid.”
- Bobafind.com provides several recipes to making your perfect drink in the comfort of your own home.
It might do first-timers some good to swing by the recipes page first to see what the heck is going on in these deliciously wild beverages before going in and making their own funny face when offered the tapioca balls.