TUKWILA, Wash. — Bubble tea is a colorful combination of tea, milk, and fruit juice with tapioca pearls - or boba - added. The refreshing drink has roots in Taiwan, but you can also find a boba bounty right here, along Washington's first Bubble Tea Trail.
"I think we're approaching being the bubble tea capitol of the country," said Mark Everton, the CEO of 'Explore Seattle Southside,' which developed the trail.
A free mobile passport guides the thirsty to more than 20 bubble tea spots in south Seattle. And like all trails - there's plenty to discover along the way!
At Natalie's Sugarcane and Desert, one of the stops on the trail, they press fresh sugar cane with a special machine. It's the main ingredient in their most popular drinks. The sugar cane comes from owner Natalie Dinh's brother's farm in Vietnam.
They're also the only stop that makes drinks using durian - a tropical fruit with a strong funk.
"The durian you have to like it or you don't like it, there's no in the middle. It has a little bit of smell to it,” Dinh said.
Dinh's is full of flavors for tasting adventures - Pennywort Mung Bean fans rejoice! All of it fresh, all of it fun.
With over 5,000 stores, Taiwan-based Coco is the largest bubble tea franchise in the world. The one at Westfield Southcenter is owned by Tommy Sy and his wife Carrie, and it's one of many trail stops inside the mall.
“It's always nice to see people with my drink or any bubble tea I guess. Because it's different ethnicity, age groups, they all love it,” Tommy said.
An impressive 10% of the state's bubble tea businesses are based in this area, according to Seattle Southside. The neighborhood has the perfect mix of ingredients for them to thrive:
"You've got to have cultural diversity, which this region has to the nines, there is an amazing amount of diversity," said Everton. "You have to have economic viability, and this area's flourishing. And the third key piece is you've got to have a lot of visitation, we have over 100,000 visitors a day that come to the Seattle Southside region."
So, pop a straw into any of the drinks you discover along the Bubble Tea Trail and savor what makes this place unique.
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