Commentary: Singaporeans, we need to pump the brakes on our bubble tea obsession

CNA

5 hours ago

SINGAPORE: If you saw weekend queues at Changi Airport this June, don't blame immigrations just yet. The more plausible culprit: Popular Malaysian boba brand Tealive's first and only Singapore outlet, freshly opened at Terminal 3.
With Tealive's arrival, we are one of the rare airports in the world with nine bubble tea brands, including HeyTea, Chicha San Chen, Naixue, Koi, LiHo, TP Tea, amps tea and iTea. Sounds like a lot of pearls per square metre, but not once you leave the airport. Just two years ago, Tampines was dubbed Singapore's 'bubble tea capital', with 21 bubble tea shops within a 500m radius.
As of 2022, we had more than 60 bubble tea brands in Singapore – and new entrants are still pouring in. Besides Tealive, China's 8,000-outlet-strong chain ChaPanda will also be arriving on our shores soon.
With over 60 brands offering upwards of 30 drinks each, the bubble tea maths is mind-boggling. Even for a single ingredient like brown sugar, we have brown sugar milk tea, brown sugar pearls, a variant with cream cheese, one with cheese brulee and another with just fresh milk, no tea.
As thousands of boba variants take up more and more space on our little red dot, have we finally reached bubble tea oversaturation in Singapore?
INSIDE THE BOBA ECONOMY
Bubble tea is a guilty pleasure of mine too, so I totally get it. We love it because it marries two of our familiar indulgences: the comforting taste of kopitiam milk tea and the illicit chew we've missed since the sale of gum was banned in 1992 – all wrapped in an Instagram-ready cup.
Barely anyone anticipated bubble tea to have this kind of cultural impact when the drink first came to our shores – also in 1992, served in cocktail glasses from a cafe at Marina Square.
As the tea-dessert hybrid evolved to its current takeaway format, it quickly spread across the island and overtook even our ubiquitous milk tea. By 2002, there were more than 5,000 shops in Singapore. But just a year later, the market reached oversaturation and the bubble burst, leading boba shops to shutter all across the island.
In those days, it seemed as if bubble tea had all the makings of a fleeting fad. Who would've thought it would evolve into the multi-billion-dollar micro-industry it is today?
Few food trends can boast such longevity and multigenerational appeal. It's not just Gen Zers who are hooked – millennials and Gen X were the same, particularly in their youth.
Bubble tea's characteristic combination of caffeine, sugar and chewable pearls is not the only reason for this timeless love affair. After the first market bubble pop in 2003, the beverage reinvented itself by tapping into Starbucks' winning formula of offering extreme customisation options.
The second wave of brands such as Koi The and Gong Cha began offering sugar and ice customisation around 2007. Ten years later, Tiger Sugar and LiHo introduced newfangled toppings like brown sugar and cheese foam. More recently, speciality teas – fruit tea and premium or single origin leaves – has emerged as a key consumer draw.
Today, most major brands put Starbucks to shame with their personalisation options: Multiple tea options, five tiers of sugar levels, three tiers of temperature variation, and as many as 10 different toppings, including pearls, aloe, konjac, collagen jelly, ice cream – adding up to hundreds of different possible combinations and permutations per brand.
As consumerism becomes increasingly intertwined with self-expression, this level of customisation transformed the beverage into a lifestyle choice, an expression of individuality, and vibe signalling, especially for young people.
ARE WE BECOMING A BUBBLE TEA NATION?
While I understand the value of such customisation, I do wonder if we're taking it a tad too far.
These days, if you are not a regular bubble tea drinker with default preferences, it can take a minute or two to even order a single drink.
I sometimes find myself in boba limbo, struggling to make five different decisions for a single beverage. Do I swop out pearls for aloe or collagen jelly? What about ice cream?
My chronic indecision aside, do these minor tweaks really matter, or are brands just too caught up in the ingredients arms race?
Blindfolded, could the average consumer tell the difference between golden bubble pearls, red sugar pearls and pink cactus pearls, or differentiate between single-estate oolong and regular oolong, especially when mixed with milk and starchy pearls?
Even the more distinguishable seasonal launches feel somewhat forced – LiHO's Salted-Egg Lava Brown Sugar Milk in 2018, Takagi Ramen's Chilli-Crab Matcha Macchiato in 2022, and Gong Cha's Century-Egg and Salted Egg special in 2024.
Wouldn't we rather just enjoy these flavour trends with crabs or congee, rather than in a cup of sugar and milk?
To a certain extent, these options were introduced to create brand differentiation, especially with multiple brands often competing against each other in close quarters.
But when bubble tea takes over so much of Singapore's prime retail space, it inadvertently transforms our food culture, crowding out other cuisine richer in both nutrients as well as historical and cultural significance.
Moreover, many regular boba drinkers are youths. Many brands appeal to this demographic with cute mascots – Koi's BB Bear, Mixue's Snow King and ChaPanda's Ding Ding Cat – as well as tie-ins with toy brand. Gong Cha recently collaborated with Pop Mart to launch Pino Jelly themed drinks, including packaging and merchandise.
Partly persuaded by the fun and hype, some parents are also starting their kids on these caffeinated beverages younger than they otherwise would – a friend of mine offers her primary school kids bubble tea on a semi-regular basis. Paediatricians warn that there is no safe caffeine dose for children under the age of 12.
How will these daily habits impact Singapore's children, tweens and teens as they come of age?
I am by no means arguing for a boba ban – like all indulgences, bubble tea has its place in our diverse food nation. But rather than hurtling towards our 2,000th boba variation, perhaps it's time to pump the brakes on this obsession. Why not leave some stomach and retail space for other heartier – and healthier – food instead?