Bubble Tea!!!!

So I was sitting in lab, and I got this intense craving for authentic Chinese (most of the food you see in Chinese restaurants is Americanized) food, and bubble tea.

If you've not had the pleasure of having bubble tea, it's this craze that started in Taiwan several years back that went international. Basically, you have iced milk tea (strong iced black tea with a lot of milk in it), some ice, and "boba" or "pearls", which are large black tapioca pieces. It's absolutely divine. I did find a couple online shops that sell the magical "pearls" (because I'm miles from the nearest Asian market, and Albertsons' doesn't exactly carry it either), so now I get to wait a week or two for it to come in.

I first had bubble tea in 2001 at this little tea house in Irvine, CA. I think the nearest bubble tea house I can reach when I'm visiting my parents in So. Utah is Volcano Tea in Las Vegas' Chinatown, but their milk tea gives me a headache, so I opt for the Passionfruit Jelly Juice. There's a handful of Bubble Tea Houses in the S.L.C. area, a few in Washington, one in Boise, but none in Montana.

And this is yet another reason why I should learn Mandarin. As if communicating with my Taiwanese relations isn't important enough.

For more information on Bubble Tea, I will direct you to Wikipedia's article on the subject.
If you'd like to try this creamy, caffeinated, sweet, chewy (because of the tapioca) sensation, check out BobaFind for the Tea House nearest to you.