Bubble tea, Taiwan’s improbable weapon against Beijing – L’Express

This chronicle tells the little or the big story behind our food, dishes or chefs. Powerful weapon soft power, A societal and cultural marker, food is the founding element of our civilizations. Conflicts, diplomacy, traditions, cuisine has always had a political dimension. Because as Bossuet already said in the 17th century, “it is at the table that we govern”.

Do you know what the main searches for French people are on Google in 2023? ChatGPT, the war between Israel and Hamas, storm Ciaran or even… bubble tea. If electronic chips have made Taiwan one of the world leaders in semiconductors, today it is these strange gelatinous tapioca “balls” from this island that are turning the heads of the world’s young people. In all of Asia but also from Paris to New York, “bubble tea”, this milky concoction has literally invaded the streets around the world. To the point of having become for this East Asian island an emblem of its identity in its existential struggle against its Chinese neighbor. While Beijing, like Washington, impatiently awaits the results of the presidential and legislative elections this Saturday, January 13, Taipei is also using this beverage, but more broadly all its brilliant gastronomy, as a weapon of “soft power” against China.

“Boba tea” as it is nicknamed, was born in the 1980s in a modest Taiwanese restaurant, at a time when the small island was beginning to emerge as an economic power. The fever will very quickly spread to nearby China, then to Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Singapore, until today it becomes a global market that will be worth nearly 4 billion dollars in 2027. The reasons for its success ? This sweet drink, with its multiple aromas and colors, is particularly “TikTok compatible”, dusts off the traditional tea ceremony and fits more with our hyperactive lifestyles. A passion within the Asian community which even earns it the honor of having a museum specially dedicated to Taiwan!

“The milk tea alliance” against authoritarian regimes

Today sipped by the greatest leaders, from the Taiwanese Minister of Foreign Affairs to the former American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, “bubble tea” has even already been served by outgoing President Tsai Ing-wen (party PDP, center-left) in person during the national holiday. While pressure has increased in recent years on what Beijing considers to be its “satellites” which must be “reunited” to use the words of Xi Jinping and his “Chinese dream” of “national rebirth”, the drink is is invited into the political arena.

In 2019, Yifang, the Taiwanese bubble tea franchise, finds itself in Beijing’s crosshairs. One of its stores in Hong Kong reportedly displayed a sign encouraging pro-democracy demonstrators. A campaign, calling for a boycott of this brand (#bubbleteaboycott), will record no less than 230 million views on the large Chinese social network Weibo. In 2020, a movement is emerging in several Asian countries. In Hong Kong, Thailand, and Taiwan, residents are making common cause against authoritarian regimes and joining forces in what they humorously call a… “milk tea alliance” (#MilkTeaAlliance). We find, on posters or on the Internet, cups of tea which refer to the very different way of drinking it depending on the country: with milk in Hong Kong, in a bubble tea version in Taiwan or sweet in Thailand… in the face of tradition of the unchanging Chinese hot tea.

44 starred restaurants in Taiwan

But Taiwan is not just about this sugar-filled drink, far from it. Its gastronomy is today praised throughout the world. Michelin made no mistake in offering since 2018 a guide dedicated to the island which has no less than 44 starred restaurants – including L’Atelier Joël Robuchon (2 stars) – and three establishments crowned with the triple macaron. All in a territory that is only four times the size of Corsica!

This culinary excitement is anything but trivial. For several years, academics, writers and restaurateurs have sought to explore “Taiwanese cuisine”, long considered to be… Chinese cuisine. Should we remember that when the Chinese Communist Party took power in 1949, at the end of the Second World War, nationalists fled the regime to settle in Taiwan. What followed was extremely harsh martial law which governed the island for almost 40 years. Around 1990, democracy finally took hold and it was quite natural that the local population – whose education was entirely focused on China – began to claim their own identity. If even today nearly 30% of the population still feels Taiwanese and Chinese at the same time, according to the latest results of an annual survey conducted by the National Chengchi University in Taipei, the desire to stand out from one’s neighbor is very real. And gastronomy offers a piece of the story of this identity construction.

A Taiwanese-American journalist, Clarissa Wei, co-wrote a seminal book with Ivy Chen, an expert in this cuisine for over 30 years, entitled: Made in Taiwan. The objective? Proving that Taiwanese cuisine exists on its own. Whether it’s pork belly buns, “stinky” tofu, a great classic of Taipei’s night markets or simple glutinous rice balls in bamboo leaves. Because the singularity of Taiwanese culinary identity is to be found in its position as a crossroads. If the cuisines of Cantonese, Hunan province, Fujian, Shanghai and Jiangzhe in China have obviously infused the island, the periods of Dutch and Japanese colonization, which date back respectively to the 17th century and the beginning of the 20th century , and even the American influence, have also left an undeniable gastronomic imprint. Eel noodles, soups “miso”, chicken with black tea are some of the specialties present on the island…

Michelin-starred restaurants that celebrate indigenous cultures

A new generation of extremely talented chefs does not hesitate to draw its inspiration from the aborigines, who came from the south-east of China around 3000 BC and were once the majority on the island. Its ingredients harvested in the mountain forests, notably by the “Friends” who form the largest of the 16 Austronesian tribes present in Taiwan, are exceptional assets in the cooks’ palette: grains of “kochia”, kind of native caviar, staghorn sumac berries, pepper “maqaw” with the taste of verbena…

The head of RAW (2 Michelin stars) André Chiang is proud to have developed the first “champagne” in the world… made from millet, called “alih”, or “wings” in the indigenous language. It refers to a local story according to which it was an indigenous bird which first brought grains of millet to the hungry tribes… Drawing on its roots, betting on its ancestral products, the only way for Taiwan to continue to write its own culinary and cultural history facing China.

Our advices :

A restaurant where you can eat “Taiwanese”: Foodi Jia-Ba-Buay2 Rue du Nil, 75002 Paris

A film to watch on Taiwanese cuisine: Salty, sweet, by Ang Lee, 1994.