This popular drink has a lot of facts that can’t be missed specially for bubble tea enthusiasts. In Jakarta, you can find mountains of tempting bubble tea outlets. Bubble tea was made in Taiwan in 1988. Lin Hsui Hui as the discoverer, decided to mix chewy black balls made from tapioca (boba) with his tea. It turned so good, since then bubble tea raised the roof.
The original colour of tapioca balls is not black but brown. They become black after mixed with brown sugar to give sweet taste. Besides being chewy, the balls taste as sweet as sugar. Bubble tea also has many names, depending on topping or ingredients they use, such as tea, milk, chocolate or even coffee.
Unfortunately, tapioca as its essential ingredient in making boba has a high resistant starch. Body apparently has difficulty to digest the starch. It also applied for sugar added during process of cooking boba. Immoderate drinking bubble tea caused obesity and diabetes. In other words, it has similar bad effect like consuming other high-sugar beverages, like syrup or soft drinks.
The solution is replace with healthier drink like sugarless juice. Or you can still take your favourite bubble tea moderately with lowest sugar level and smallest size to limit number of calories for your body.