Bubble tea is the hottest food & beverage category of the modern age and has been growing non-stop across the West since the early 2010s. Unlike past fads, bubble tea has established its staying power as both a product and business. Bubble tea was introduced in the U.S in the 90s by Quickly and Tapioca Express. Starbucks, Dunkin, and Jamba Juice had shown how to snowball momentum from a single store into a franchise empire. New brands like Gong Cha and Happy Lemon emerged across Asia, looking to replicate that success in boba. By the 2010s, competition had intensified across China and Taiwan with each new entrant adding their own spin. But as legacy coffee giants have stagnated and Asian-American culture has grown, bubble tea in the United States has become a gold rush. What was once a low-margin, niche business in the 1990s is now a high-margin, high-cash-flow business.