Origin Story: Bubble Love

*Pomegranate Tea and Passion fruit Tea with cherry popping boba*

“There’s got to be boba around here somewhere” was the thought that kept running through my mind as I pushed a double stroller full of kids through the Nashville farmers’ market. I had recently come back to the states from living in China for 9 years to give birth to the twins and make a new life with my husband in Nashville. It was a strategic move, not only because Vanderbilt had given Nathan a full ride for the next two years, but because we wanted to live near family.

When I saw that open air farmers’ market two blocks from a rental, I knew it was the house for us. I had been buying food from Chinese farmers and growers for the last 9 years and it was one of my favorite things about food in China: I knew most of the people growing the food on my table. There is something transformative about having a relationship with the lady who sells you green beans twice a week.

But the first time I set foot in that market was for a different, more desperate, purpose. I was searching for bubble tea.

Having walked to the non-profit where I worked for the last 9 years, I would often grab a 肉包 (pork bun) and a 珍珠奶柴 (bubble tea) for breakfast since those stores were open and coffee shops (still a novelty in SE China at the time) weren’t open till at least 10am. I often got one on the way to work and one on the way home to go with dinner. It just became my rhythm. I knew the shop owners, their spouses, their teenage children who often ran the shop while the owners sat at tiny tables nearby playing mahjong with friends. I couldn’t play mahjong to save my life, but I loved to chat about their hometowns. The shop owners’ parents literally owned the side of a mountain where they grew some of the teas for the shop. I was entranced by this little bubble tea shop and how personal it was from leaf to straw.

The move back to the American South had been jarring for our little family of five. Twin babies and a 2 year old, a husband in grad school, and Nashville-sized rent on top of it all. I started nannying neighbor’s children for income and the tiny house quickly filled with tiny people. Those days were rough, but glorious. We were on food stamps and WIC and my life became price comparing and trying to grow our own food. Besides the financial challenges, I had lost so many cultural elements leaving China and I was in a stage of grief that I wasn’t even aware of at the time. I even asked the shop owner of an Asian restaurant if he knew how to make bubble tea and would start selling it to me.

*Baby days when I stayed home and made money nannying neighbors’ children. Those days were so sweet.*

When the boba search came up short, I started ordering ingredients online and watching videos in Chinese about how to make it at home. There was something missing in my recipe and it was driving me bonkers. I couldn’t recreate the milk tea from my walk to work and I couldn’t figure out why. While polling a few friends still in China, I came across one friend who had grown up in Taiwan, the origin place of bubble tea. With her advice, a trip to the store, and a few more hours of tweaking in my rental kitchen, the recipe for our Classic milk tea was born.

It wasn’t until another year and another rental house later that my idea for my own shop took shape. My husband got a signing bonus of $2000 from a placement as a special education teacher. Being the entrepreneur he is at heart, he was really the one pushing me to go for it. We knew we didn’t want to be in debt ever again, and this bonus was a chance to get things started. We figured, maybe there were other people in Nashville who missed bubble tea as much as we did. I used part of the bonus to get into an introductory business class and with the rest, I bought a folding table, my favorite brand of high end boba, my favorite tea from the many trial pots I had brewed, and the biggest boba straws I could find. Dusting off graphic design skills from college, I created a logo with the shop’s name “Bubble Love” or “珍珠爱” (which literally translates to ‘bubble love’ or ‘tapioca pearl love’). “Born out of the missing I felt and in honor of the ‘family’ I had found during my time in China, I wanted to incorporate Chinese characters where I could. But, apparently, it’s not enough to just love bubble tea. When I first started selling tea outside on a table at the Nashville Farmers’ Market, I didn’t even know I was supposed to collect taxes! That’s how little I knew about selling something in America.

*The shop began outside under the farm sheds. We had to haul water and ice, but had a great first summer.*

The little stand became a larger stand, moved indoors, became a whole stall, survived the pandemic, and is still growing. Staffed by a team of amazing bobaristas, Bubble Love has morphed into something I never knew could exist. We still have to explain to visitors what bubble tea is all day long, but Nashville has definitely jumped on the boba train and we are here for the ride.