Taiwanese tea (gongfu oolong & bubble tea)
Taiwan pairs a refined gongfu oolong culture — prized high-mountain teas brewed in small pots — with the birthplace of bubble tea, the 1980s milk-tea-and-tapioca drink that conquered the world.
Taiwan holds two tea worlds at once. The first is a serious gongfu oolong culture inherited and refined from Fujian and Chaozhou: growers coax prized 'high-mountain' oolongs (gaoshan cha) from misty peaks like Alishan, Lishan, and Shanlinxi, and drinkers brew them gongfu-style in gaiwans and clay pots, savouring floral, buttery, and roasted notes across many infusions. The second is bubble tea (珍珠奶茶, 'pearl milk tea'), invented in Taiwan in the 1980s — both the Chun Shui Tang tea house in Taichung and the Hanlin Tea Room in Tainan claim its creation around 1986–1988 — when someone dropped chewy tapioca pearls into iced milk tea. From island street stalls it became a global craze, spawning countless flavours and the signature fat straw for slurping the pearls. Together, the meditative pot of mountain oolong and the shaken cup of boba show a tea culture that is at once deeply traditional and endlessly inventive.
How it's prepared
High-mountain oolong is brewed gongfu-style: a small gaiwan or pot filled with leaves and re-steeped many times. Bubble tea is brewed strong, sweetened, shaken with ice and milk, and poured over cooked tapioca pearls into a sealed cup.
The vessel
For oolong, the same gaiwan and Yixing-style clay pots of gongfu cha. For bubble tea, a tall plastic cup heat-sealed with a film lid, pierced by an extra-wide straw so the pearls can be drawn up.
Its social role
Gongfu oolong sessions are for savouring and sharing among friends and connoisseurs; bubble tea is casual, youthful, and social — a walkaround drink and a defining piece of modern Taiwanese identity exported worldwide.
What accompanies it
Oolong with dried fruit or light snacks; bubble tea often customised with toppings — pudding, grass jelly, taro — and adjustable sugar and ice levels.