Drink a lot: bubble tea

When it comes to food trends, there's hardly ever a real scoop to be had. We've been having tiny fits over things like cupcakes, ecological eating and balsamic vinegar for years, and believe we're well ahead of the game when 'discovering' new variations on the same old themes: think whoopie pies, farmers' markets and cider vinegar respectively. Ooh. Exciting stuff.

So you can imagine my delight when a Whole New Trend unfolded itself right under my nose. You see, my 'kiez' (neighbourhood) has suddenly exploded with bubble tea shops. The tiny little shops are tucked away between Neukoelln's kebab sellers, one euro shops and the Turkish supermarkets, so I have to be forgiven for initially thinking bubble tea was Turkish. A drink to be enjoyed, perhaps, with your nargile. Totally wrong. As soon as I saw someone come out of a shop holding the actual drink, I realised: it's an Asian thing. (Stepping in and looking at the people - unmistakeably Asian - behind the counter also helped...)

The Asians like their sweets mealy, artificially coloured and highly processed. In shops and coffee places all over Asia, you will find things like crustless sandwiches in cute shapes filled with a sweet paste, chocolates flavoured with the faint taste of cherry blossoms and brightly coloured 'tea' drinks with bits of jelly suspended in them. And that's where the bubble tea comes in.

Bubble tea is a tea-based drink, sweetened by a syrup of your choice and as many different flavours of tapioca 'pearls' (chewy balls made of cassave flour and boiled) or jelly bits as you can stomach. Rainbow jelly, passion fruit, green tea, yoghurt, aloe vera, lychee or mango. It doesn't sound that appealing so far, now does it? The ingredients are shaken, cocktail style, over some ice, strained into a 500ml plastic beaker and sealed. You then get to stab your straw through - extra large to accommodate the sucking up of the balls and jelly bits.

I doubt there is any tea to be found in this drink, and of course it is highly processed and seriously unnatural. Needless to say I wasn't expecting much, flavourwise. However. My jasmin green tea, green apple drink with lemon jelly floaties tasted refreshing, jasminey and not too sweet. Even the jelly bits were palatable, nice even. I loved the fact there are no conventional 'bubbles' in bubble tea - i.e. no carbonated water. Soda drinks make me burp (sorry) and really, how natural is drinking a can of Coke? I may have found a great alternative to the ubiquitous Club Mate for upcoming hot summer days.

Maybe it's time to say goodbye to that widely accepted food trend of 'natural' foods. All hail to the additives. After all, the Asians seem to live long and happy lives on them.