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Two for tea

Do bubble tea and chai
have more in common than we think?

By Carolyn Bilsky

Aside from the obvious tea component, you might find yourself wondering what chai and bubble tea have in common. One is usually served hot (chai), and the other chilled (bubble). Bubble tea is known for its shockingly colorful, attention-grabbing, odd appearance and chai is brown, at best, and known for being a warm, spicy blend of exotic seasonings. Chai is an ancient tea tradition steeped in hundreds of years of Indian custom, while bubble tea emerged from the Asian youth culture of the 1980s and exploded on to the specialty drink scene.

But, there is something that draws these two strangers together; they are both members of a rapidly growing flavor profile. Both bubble tea and chai are alternative-to-coffee beverages sweetened with milk, spices, juice and/or syrups--just the way American consumers like it. Need proof that Americans like it this way? Each of the chai and bubble tea manufacturers consulted for this article reported increasing sales.

Photo courtesy of Monin

Stories about bubble tea growth have almost mythical proportions. The beverage known in different global locations as boba, pearl tea, QQ and other names, was reportedly first sold by a Taipei, Taiwan, street vendor to school children. The drink, originally consisting of fruit-infused tea and tapioca pearls, quickly caught on and bubble tea shops appeared on street corners in Asia faster than a certain green mermaid clad coffee shop sprouted up in this country. While statistics on just how many bubble tea shops exist in America today are difficult to come by, the shops are quickly appearing in metropolitan areas such as Los Angeles and New York.

Sweetening Sales

It's no surprise that consumers are responding to these beverages, says Rich Principale, chief brands manager for Mocafe, Laguna Nigel, Calif., which manufactures and distributes both chai and bubble tea. "Unless you ice it, and really sweeten it up, and flavor it strong, you don't really have the makings of an American trend," he explains, "It's not just boiling water with some tea in it, that's not a concept that appeals to Americans." He cites specialty coffee as an example of America's sweet tooth. When coffee shops started serving iced coffees and lattes laced with creamy milk and sweet syrups, specialty coffee really took off, he explains.

Photo courtesy of Oregon Chai

Similarly, flavorful chai, which usually consists of black tea spiked with cardamom, cinnamon, clove and various other spices, is experiencing sales that are "climbing, climbing, climbing," according to Kathryn Huhn, marketing manager for foodservice at Oregon Chai. The addition of these spices, and milk as well, makes traditional black tea more palatable to American consumers. "Chai really lifted the ban on tea in this country," says Principale. "I think the second we added milk to tea and did something funky with it, we had in essence the making of tea in this country."

The proof is in the sales. "The chai category is continuing to grow," says Huhn of Oregon Chai's products. So much so, that the company recently expanded its product offering to include a chai smoothie base, in addition to its ready-to-drink and liquid and powder concentrates. Huhn sees this as a natural extension of chai's progression. "It's like espresso lattes came first, then the mocha, then the chai tea latte and you're seeing the same progression in smoothies. You see the espresso smoothies, then the mocha smoothies, the natural progression is the chai tea smoothie," she explains.

Photo courtesy of Da Vinci Gourmet

Other companies are seeing this popular flavor profile growing as well. Tracy Ging, director of marketing for Da Vinci Gourmet says, "Chai tea concentrate sales are climbing significantly--we saw about 80 percent growth in 2003 vs. 2002."

Lynn Merriam, co-manager of Java Frost LLC, Ojai, Calif., says, "I thought originally when they first started coming out with chai that it was going to be here today, gone tomorrow, but it's a huge part of our business now." She finds that retailers are even using it in ways she hadn't imagined. As the name of the company implies, the powdered mixes were designed to be used in cold drinks. "But our customers started using it hot," she says, adding that most of her customers use the mix both ways.

Churning out chai

Whether chai is served hot or cold, each company boasts easy preparation. "Our chai can be mixed in a cup with hot water and a spoon, through a blender, or out of a hot beverage dispenser like an instant cappuccino dispenser," says Ric Lashway, president of Selection Unlimited, which offers a powdered chai mix.

Da Vinci offers a liquid concentrate that is added to steamed milk and served. Oregon Chai's liquid concentrate is dairy-free and is prepared with the "customer's choice of milk or soy milk" and heated or splashed over ice.

Monin offers a shelf-stable liquid concentrate. "Our product quality and taste last long after the product has been opened and stored," says Paul Colligan, director of marketing. He also describes the preparation in just three steps: "store, pour and mix."

Java Frost's powdered mixes can be combined with water or milk. "You can mix it with hot water or milk and you can blend it as well," says Merriam. "To make it a blended product, we needed to make it creamier. So, when you make it hot, it's much creamier than your traditional chai," she says.

Photo courtesy of Cool Capp

Cool Capp also offers a powdered mix that can be added to water for a more traditional flavor. "We also have a barista recipe that teaches them (baristas) how to use less product and then by adding milk to it, you can save some money on the product," says Cool Capp president Larry Somers.

Mocafe's offering is a powdered product with dairy inherently included. "Chai is traditionally a hot drink and we like to stick with what is more traditional," says Principale. The mix, made with whole grain spices, can be combined with water or milk and no equipment is necessary.

Breaking down bubble tea

Traditionally, there's a little more to preparing bubble tea, than there is to chai. In Asia, part of the intrigue surrounding bubble tea comes from the powders, juices and boba (or tapioca pearls) that are used to prepare it. "The traditional Chinese way is very product-driven and they try to keep it confusing so that you can't figure it out," says Principale. "They try to keep it like a science experiment," he explains.

Indeed, bubble tea supplier Bruce&Clark, based in Seattle, agrees, and has broken down the process into the technical-sounding Bubble Tea Schema®. This plan calls for one liquid, tea or water; flavor components, flavored powders, syrups or fruits; sweeteners, sugar syrups; and texture components, tapioca pearls, CHOBEE (the company's own colored chewy cubes that don't require cooking) or coconut jelly.

Mocafe's Principale has broken the process down into even fewer steps. He explains how retailers can choose one smoothie base flavor and then add a freshly brewed tea to it, to create bubble tea, or what he prefers to call a tea latte. "You can take our starfruit latte base, while brewing jasmine tea, and you can take the tea and create a jasmine tea latte," he says.

"We allow coffee bars to make bubble tea a business within a business," he continues. Traditional bubble tea preparation takes up a large chunk of counter space that would be difficult for a coffee retailer to adapt into a coffee shop setting. With Mocafe's method, "all you need is a cocktail shaker," he says. The shaker is used to mix the tea and base together and create the frothy head of bubbles, which give bubble tea its name. It is a big misconception that bubble tea is named for the tapioca balls often present in the bottom of the cup, says Principale. If the tapioca pearls are a turn off to you, then simply don't include them, he says, it's still a tea latte.

Chai Combos

"The number of different flavors of chai that you can develop are endless," says Lashway of Selection Unlimited's powdered chai mixes.

The options in flavoring both chai and bubble tea are limitless. Both beverages can be successfully and deliciously combined with anything from fruit to chocolate to an array of flavored syrups. Some manufacturers offer pre-flavored mixes, while others leave it up to retailers and baristas to experiment with different combinations.

Oregon Chai, which is offered in liquid concentrate, powder concentrate, ready-to-drink and the just added smoothie base, offers different flavors for its different forms. All of Oregon Chai's decaf concentrates and mixes are made with rooibos, a naturally decaffeinated tea grown in Africa. "Rooibos is a hot trend right now," says Huhn.

She'll get no argument about that from Mocafe's Principale who is very excited about Mocafe's rooibos tea latte. "The rooibos tea is very refreshing. It's a caramel flavor profile and it has a very red color to it. It has antioxidants and it's yummy," he says. Principale is also quick to point out that the rooibos tea latte is one of the few drinks that can be enjoyed both hot and cold. "It's delicious both ways," he proclaims.

Mocafe's chai is offered in a powdered form in three flavors: mango, vanilla and spiced. These powdered mixes, meant to be combined with water, can be served as is, or combined with other flavors. "I think that Mocafe has always tried to tap the creativity of baristas in terms of allowing them to understand that our products are just bases from which you can create. They are catalysts for other drinks," explains Principale.

Cool Capp's powdered mixes come in vanilla, spice, dutch apple and chocolate. "Retailers all have their own little recipes and some of them will add flavors to it," says Somers. The vanilla takes added flavor the best, he explains. "It's generally the vanilla that they add flavor to because the flavor on the spice is a little more overpowering," he says. Raspberry and caramel are flavors he has seen successfully added to the vanilla.

Ging says that caramel, along with flavors like almond and white chocolate, are often added to Da Vinci's chai concentrate by individual operators as well. "We offer a variety of options to answer the taste preferences of the customer, including holiday and seasonal flavors such as Chai Nog," she says.

Similarly, Java Frost has no shortage of options. "We've got raspberry, summer green, spiced chai and sugar free," says Merriam. "The spiced is the most popular, but the sugar free is coming right up there," she says. Retailers also use the powdered mixes in combination with syrups and chocolate. "I recently heard about someone doing a fruit juice concoction," she says.

"Our flavor is so clean and pure, some consumers prefer it just mixed with water," says Colligan of Monin's unique chai concentrate made with green tea and "a touch of organic orange blossom." Still, Monin offers several recipes for chai-based drinks, including a nutty chai made with hazelnut syrup, and a berry chai made with berry-flavored syrup.

Bubbling Options

If it seems like there are a lot of options in making chai (and there are!) there seem to be even more for bubble tea. "The Chinese have even called things bubble tea that don't have any tea in them whatsoever," says Principale.

Bubble Tea manufacturer Bruce&Clark defines the beverage this way: "Bubble tea refers to the genre of frothy and refreshing concoctions, usually of tea and a myriad of combination of other flavours [sic], served with or without milk or cream, with or without tapioca pearls." This description offers evidence that the exact definition of bubble tea is hard to pin down. The term "bubble" in "bubble tea" originally referred to the frothy bubbles, or head, that is formed when the beverage is shaken during preparation. Besides the bubbly head, the contents of the beverage are up to the discretion of the retailer.

Bruce&Clark offers over 30 cream flavor powders ranging from traditional taro and red bean, to fruits like green apple and banana, to the unusual like bubblegum and mint. These flavor powders can be further enhanced with milk powders, sour flavor powders and flavor syrups--all available in several flavors. To add depth, complexity and smoothness to the drink, the company recommends adding a shot of tea as well.

Mocafe offers approximately 15 base flavors, which can be enhanced with any flavor of tea that the retailer chooses. "It's almost like delis that have a menu of sandwiches, but then you can also add anything to those. That's what we're showing and that's why our system is so successful. We're showing coffee retailers from 15 bases how to make a whole menuboard of these things," says Principale.

Here to stay

However different or similar bubble tea and chai may be, they are both sweet, flavorful drink concepts that offer an alternative to coffee-based beverages. And one thing is for certain, neither one seems to be going away. According to the Tea Association of the U.S.A., 2003 was the 12th consecutive year that consumer purchases of tea increased. This brought the amount of tea consumed in the United States in 2003 to over 2.25 billion gallons. The Tea Association also estimates that about one half the American population enjoys a cup of tea every day, making it clear that coffee isn't the only specialty beverage worth serving.

Contacts

Bruce and Clark Bubble Tea

• Portland, Ore.
• (604) 271-2530
• www.bruceandclark.com

Cool Capp Inc.

• Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif.
• (949) 709-5670
• www.coolcapp.com

Da Vinci Gourmet

• Seattle
• (800) 640-6779
• www.davincigourmet.com

Java Frost LLC

• Ventura, Calif.
• (800) 676-3661
• www.javafrost.com

Mocafe

• Laguna Niguel, Calif.
• (888) 662-2334
• www.mocafeworld.com

Monin

• Clearwater, Fla.
• (727) 461-3033
• www.monin.com

Selection Unlimited

• So. Burlington, Vt.
• (800) 811-8689
• www.selectionunlimited.com

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Originally published - May  2004
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