Everyone from Starbucks to Chinese giants wants in on the boba tea craze. Meet the family who says they started it all.

Boba, a novelty beverage, has become mainstream, with shops popping up across the world. The trend began in Taiwan in the 1980s, where teahouse Chun Shui Tang was a pioneer of the beverage. Chun Shui Tang faces competition from Chinese brands but remains committed to quality and growth.

Inspired by iced coffee on a trip to Japan in the early 80s, Liu Han-Chieh, the teahouse’s founder, found out that selling tea was harder than loving tea. He found that traditional Chinese tea drinking involved multiple steps, which can make the sale pitch long-drawn. When customers finally do commit to buying a bag of tea leaves, they could brew it for weeks.

Chun Shui Tang started as a traditional teahouse selling tea leaves — a dime a dozen in Taiwan. However, as Liu Han-Chieh, the teahouse’s founder, found out, selling tea was harder than loving tea. He found that selling tea leaves with a human touch benefited his business.

Inspired by iced coffee on a trip to Japan in the early 80s, Liu went home with the idea for a hand-shaken iced tea, a bold move for the teahouse at the time, as cold tea was generally only served at street food stands. Soon, Lin Hsiu-hui, a young staffer who was managing sales of chilled tea at the teahouse, was outselling his traditional hot offerings. With iced tea, you can sell to anyone from three years old to 80 years old. With hot tea, you can only sell to old people.”

Liu instructed Lin, who is now the R&D director at Chun Shui Tang, to experiment with adding new ingredients to tea. She simply added her favorite childhood Taiwanese dessert treat — chewy tapioca balls — to milk tea. Liu coined the term “pearls” for the topping because they reminded him of black pearls.

Liu likened the evolution of his tea offerings to coffee giant Starbucks, which was founded in 1971 and started out selling coffee beans. Now, Starbucks sells everything from beverages to meals, coffee mugs, and merchandise.

Chun Shui Tang has over 200 outlets globally, compared to Starbucks’ count of more than 38,000. The tea company’s founder, Liu, is keen on taking a longer-term approach to growing Chun Shui Tang and is not looking for external funding.

The proliferation of boba tea underscores the island’s soft power in an era when news constantly revolves around military threats from China, which claims Taiwan as its territory. Today, boba tea can be easily found in the US, a far cry from when Liu’s daughter, Angela, was studying at Purdue University in the US some 15 years ago.

Taiwanese government data show exports of tapioca and substitutes, including tapioca balls, to the US by tonnage more than doubled in the five years to 2023. Starbucks has a take on boba too, with raspberry pearls and a summer berries mixture. Chun Shui Tang’s executives appear unperturbed by the many shapes and forms boba tea takes these days, as they have already been there and done that.

Chun Shui Tang, a Taiwanese teahouse founded by Liu Han-chieh, has been a popular tourist hotspot in the country. The founder’s father, a medical doctor, was supportive of his tea business and gifted him a teapot, believing he would do a “proper job” running the business. However, Liu introduced a chilled tea beverage and added new toppings to a traditional beverage, which led to his father refusing to speak with him for three years.

Liu’s father eventually gave him convincing sales figures and a shiny new car, and he still keeps the teapot his father gifted close to him in the office to remind him of his first supporter. Today, Chun Shui Tang is on many tourists’ checklists, and its shop fronted by a striking blue tiled roof attracts a steady stream of travelers.

Unlike most boba tea shops today, Chun Shui Tang still retains its original genteel teahouse element where customers can dine in. Customers can order food including noodles, various side dishes, and breakfast toast, as well as traditional Chinese tea. One of Chun Shui Tang’s biggest challenges is a very crowded marketplace.

The competition is tough amid fierce competition from China, as more chain bubble tea operations in China have ambitions to go overseas to expand their global footprint. Some mainland chains, such as Central China-based Mixue, are also backed by venture capital money, making the competition especially stiff. Taiwanese firms’ clout as the first to invent the product is not enough to make them frontrunners in the global race.

Chun Shui Tang founder Liu said he isn’t worried about the competition, because the market is big enough for everyone. He believes that his tea business has only gotten better with more competitors, because it’s through them that they learn about boba tea and his pioneer Taiwanese brand.

In conclusion, Chun Shui Tang, a Taiwanese teahouse, faces stiff competition in the global boba tea market. While it is a familiar name in Taiwan, it is not the most recognizable brand globally. The competition is fierce, with mainland chains like Mixue being backed by venture capital money and Taiwanese firms’ clout as the first to invent the product.

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