• Skip to main content
  • Skip to header right navigation
  • Skip to site footer
Umami Days

Umami Days

Meaty with a dash of veggies

  • Recipes
    • By meal
      • Breakfast
      • Lunch / dinner
      • Snacks
    • By main ingredient
      • Poultry
      • Meat
      • Seafood
      • Eggs
      • Mushrooms
      • Tofu
      • Vegetables
    • By carb
      • Rice
      • Noodles
      • Bread
  • Kitchen
    • Kitchen how-tos
    • Cooking ingredients
    • Kitchen tools
  • Food Tales
    • Edible Garden
    • Dining
  • Newsletter
  • Recipes
    • By meal
      • Breakfast
      • Lunch / dinner
      • Snacks
    • By main ingredient
      • Poultry
      • Meat
      • Seafood
      • Eggs
      • Mushrooms
      • Tofu
      • Vegetables
    • By carb
      • Rice
      • Noodles
      • Bread
  • Kitchen
    • Kitchen how-tos
    • Cooking ingredients
    • Kitchen tools
  • Food Tales
    • Edible Garden
    • Dining
  • Newsletter

Sago, boba and bubble tea

08.10.2019 (Updated: 10.29.2023)

Know exactly what you’re getting. Sago and boba are not the same. There is a disctinction between bubble tea and milk tea. Boba shakes do not contain real tea.

Bubble tea and pork bun

Tamsui waterfront, 2019. Speedy had just queued up for pork buns while I took a video of how they were made. We decided to pair them with bubble milk tea and enjoy our bread and drinks while gazing at the river. It was a beautiful moment.

Not that the food and drink were new to us. Pork buns are a-plenty in Asia and the Taiwanese version is just one among many. It wasn’t our first milk tea experience either much less our first encounter with the chewy spheres that have captivated the world.

Bubble tea was invented in Taiwan in the 1980s. Who exactly invented it is a subject of debate. But its popularity grew by leaps and bounds and the sweet drink found its way to other Asian countries and beyond.

What are those chewy balls anyway? They’re tapioca pearls (or tapiocal balls) but they’re more popularly known as boba. Tapioca pearl is not the same as sago.

Boba (tapioca pearls) and sago are not the same thing

Taho hawker in the Philippines

Sago comes from the sago palm Metroxylon sagu. I’ve been enjoying sago far longer than boba. When I was a child, summer afternoons were spent waiting for the ambulant taho vendor. Carrying two vats suspended on either end of a wooden stick, hail him and he laid down the vats, filled your mug with soft bean curd, doused it with brown sugar syrup and topped it with sago. It was one of our most beloved mid-afternoon treats.

By the time I was in high school, I would become acquainted with another form of street food that featured sago. A drink that was known by the name of its ingredients. Gulaman at sago. Cubes of agar-agar and chewy sago with iced water sweetened with brown sugar syrup.

So, yes, I grew up with sago. And my fascination with them, I carried to adulthood. There’s just something about them… Spongy outside and chewy towards the center. By themselves, they are flavorless. But combine them with something sweet and they become irresistible. Tapioca pearls are like that too. So, having been a sago fan for most of my life, when the boba craze hit the country, it was hard not to get caught in it.

Tapioca pearls, as the name so obviously makes it clear, is made with tapioca, a starch extracted from cassava, a root vegetable. In commercial usage, however, they have somehow become interchangeable. These days, buy sago and what you may be getting are tapioca pearls instead. And vice versa.

Bubble tea, bubble milk tea and bubble shake are not the same

Bubble tea is sweetened and often fruit-flavored tea with tapioca pearls.

Bubble tea

Tea, milk, sugar and tapioca pearls make up the basic bubble milk tea drink.

Boba shakes don’t contain tea. They are mostly milk, flavorings, ice and tapioca pearls. Think slushies with chewy balls mixed in.

Is bubble tea a healthy drink?

It is high in sugar. But there’s a workaround to make the drink less sugary. I learned that when my daughter, Sam, and visited Hanoi.

Across the street from our apartment in Hanoi, there was a bubble tea shop. Sam and I went there a couple of times. I was surprised that there was an option to cut down on the sugar. Want just half of the usual amount of sugar? Or just a quarter? Or no sugar at all? Just say so and that’s how your bubble milk tea would be mixed.

Sam, the most bubble milk tea obsessed member of our family, told me that it wasn’t exactly a new thing. She said, there are a lot of bubble milk tea stores that give customers the same option. Walking around Hoan Kiem Lake during the same trip, we escaped the afternoon heat for a few minutes by going inside a bubble milk tea shop that offered the same low-to-no-sugar options.

So, you see, if it’s about the sugar content, it may just be a matter of finding better bubble milk tea shops.

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, the blog owner earns commission from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.

In the spotlight

Air fryer lechon kawali (crispy pork belly) recipe

Air fried lechon kawali (crispy pork belly)

Japanese beef rice bowl (gyudon)

Japanese beef rice bowl (gyudon)

Garlic spinach garnished with sesame seeds

Garlic spinach

Ground pork adobo and egg rice bowl

Ground pork adobo and egg rice bowl

Shrimp spring rolls

Hungry for more?

Subscribe to the newsletter to get the latest posts in your inbox.

No spam. Read the privacy policy.

More Food Tales

Components of panipuri: puti (fried hollow flatbread), potato mash, tamarind chutney, curd and spiced water

What is panipuri?

Grilling Matsusaka beef at Matsusakagyu Yakiniku M in Osaka

The lowdown on Japanese beef: Wagyu, Kobe, Matsusaka… what’s the difference?

suman (Filipino sticky rice cakes) with Nutella, dulce de leche and jam

Suman: Filipino sticky rice cakes

Chinese sausage and egg rice bowl

Almusal: breakfast in the Philippines

Sidebar

Connie Veneracion, 2020

Hi, I’m Connie!

Home cook and writer by passion, photographer by necessity, and good food, coffee and wine lover forever. I write recipes, cooking tips and food stories. No AI is used in creating content for this blog.

More about me and Umami Days.

  • About
  • Privacy
  • Copyright
  • No AI
  • Contact

Created by a human for humans · Copyright © 2025 Connie Veneracion · All Rights Reserved