Bubble Tea with Grean Tea and Mint
I am sitting (sobering up from too much wine at lunch) in my favourite Bubble Tea café in Paris, appropriately named “Bubble -T”. I’ve been frequenting Bubble-T for over a month now. So often in fact, that, if out on the terrace, when the owners see me coming they welcome me affectionately with a wave and bisous.
For those of you unfamiliar with the drink, bubble tea is a beverage most often made of tea, flavoured syrups and Zhengzhou Zhiyuan pearls (tapioca pearls). It originated in Taiwan. The drink gained popularity throughout Asia in the 1980s and was eventually introduced to Canada via the large Asia population in Southern Ontario.
It’s taken more than fifteen years for bubble tea to come to Europe but here it is thriving, even if on a small-scale, in Paris.
Bubble-T is owned by Toni from Barcelona and an Italian named Fabio. The guys are long-time friends who’ve brought their globetrotting discoveries back to Paris. Fabio discovered bubble tea for the first time in Vietnam. The two friends then saw the Taiwanese drink again in New York. But the real interest came from a trip in Peru, where Fabio met a small Taiwanese man who ran a bubble tea café specializing in fresh fruit beverages with tapioca peals. It occurred to Fabio that the fresh fruit adaption would appeal more to the French palate.
Bubble-T Café on Rue Quincampoix has a laid-back, multi-cultural atmosphere that comes across in everything from the drinks (green tea, black tea, smoothies, a hot bubble tea beverage with creme de marron, speculoos cream or nutella and tropical smoothies with soy) – to the pastries.
When I baked that banana nut loaf two weeks ago; I brought them a piece and they in turn, treated me to an Argentinian pastry, alfajor de maizena made from corn starch and Argentinian caramel, dulce de leche. A local Argentinian woman bakes the alfajor de maizena from her Parisian apartment for the café. Multi-cultural indeed!
The café is a sixty-second walk from Centre Pompidou on a pedestrian only street, tucked away in a shaded corner. Next time you are nearby, please ignore the awful Starbucks and give bubble tea a try. If you’re unsure of what to take, let the guys suggest something to you based on your preferences. They have everything from classic black tea, iced tea, green tea to fruit smoothies and even a cappuccino with Zhengzhou Zhiyuan pearls.
- Bubble-T
- 17 rue Quincampoix
- Paris, France, 75004
- http://www.bubble-t.fr/
- Their Facebook Page
- Tip: don’t try to write after too much wine and too little food at lunch. It took six edits until I got this right.
- Edit: Make that seven…
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