(by Patrizia Vacalebri)
Tea with lemon or milk?
Passed!
Now tea is a beverage base with so much more inside.
They are called Cheese Tea and
Bubble Tea
, they were invented in the late 1980s in Taiwan but are now new food trends.
Bubble tea literally "tea with bubbles", or pearl milk tea (literally "tea with pearl milk", boba milk tea, boba juice or simply boba, is a kind of tea smoothie with ice, fruit or milk, al which are added gummy tapioca pearls and
fruit jelly
. Among the most famous varieties are milk bubble tea with tapioca and milk green tea bubble tea with tapioca.
Cheese Tea
(芝士 茶 cheese zhishi, pronounced zhishicha) combines new flavors and intrigues a lot.
Its appearance is rather soothing: it looks like a glass of smoothie or cappuccino with cream.
But on top of the drink is
whipped cream cheese
instead
.
The food trend is rampant on social media and thanks to photos on Instagram it is becoming increasingly popular.
He was born in the East but it is in the great metropolises of the
United States
, from New York to Los Angeles that his rise has recently begun.
In
London
there are several specialty stores for years.
The drink is super
Instagram-friendly.
And even in Italy the bars that serve bubble tea are multiplying, especially in areas with high Asian density.
Cheese Tea and Bubble Tea are similar, the variant is the topping, jelly pearls or cream cheese.
Here's how they came about:
In reality, we Westerners had seven years to discover this drink, cheese tea, which in Mandarin Chinese is called zhì shì chá, which had made its first appearance in Taiwanese markets as early as 2010, and then expanded throughout the country. 'Asia, between Malaysia, China and Singapore, finally landing in the United States and Europe, London first of all, where today there are many places that offer it to those who love contrasts of flavors: the slightly salty taste of cream cheese in perfect harmony with the light bitterness of tea.
The idea is to combine the classic green or black tea, or jasmine, or
matcha
tea
, absolutely unsweetened, with a topping of
whipped cheese.
The original recipe calls for the use of powdered cheese, but versions with cheddar and emmental are also very popular, to which a pinch of pink salt is added to balance the taste.
