ZAP’S FACTS!
DRINKS

Bubble tea was invented in Taiwan in the 1980s.

A tea shop manager dropped tapioca pearls into iced tea on a whim - and accidentally invented one of the biggest drink crazes of the modern world.

2 min read
Bubble tea was invented in Taiwan in the 1980s.
THE FULL STORY

In the early 1980s, a tea shop manager in Taiwan named Lin Hsiu Hui got bored during a staff meeting and tipped the dessert she was eating - sweet tapioca pearls - into her iced tea. Everyone at the meeting wanted to try it. The shop started selling the strange new drink, and within a few years it was a craze across Taiwan.

The “bubbles” in bubble tea aren’t actually bubbles. They’re little chewy balls made from tapioca, which comes from the root of the cassava plant. Soaked in sugar syrup, they turn dark and sweet. The pearls are too big to fit up a normal straw, which is why bubble tea is served with a giant fat one.

By the 1990s, bubble tea shops were popping up across East Asia. Today the drink is sold in over 50 countries with endless variations - fruit teas, milky teas, jellies, mango popping pearls, and even cheese foam on top. The whole worldwide industry started with one bored manager and a snack.

Root beer was originally made from the bark of a tree.
DID YOU KNOW? Root beer was originally made from the bark of a tree. The classic American fizzy drink got its sweet, spicy flavor from the root of the sassafras tree. 2 min read
Astronauts on the space station drink their own recycled sweat.
DID YOU KNOW? Astronauts on the space station drink their own recycled sweat. Water is too heavy to launch into space, so every drop on the ISS is filtered and used again - and again. 2 min read
People have been drinking lemonade for at least a thousand years.
DID YOU KNOW? People have been drinking lemonade for at least a thousand years. The first lemonade-like drinks were sold in medieval Egypt - long before lemons even reached Europe. 2 min read