Bubble Tea & Bubblewrap

The following three things are probably not unrelated:

1. Over the last 3 years or so, bubble tea has become a lot more widespread in London than it used to be. 
2. Taiwanese chains such as Chatime, Gong Cha and T4 have largely displaced London-based Bubbleology over the last few years.
3. A 2012 reciprocal agreement provides for 2000 Taiwanese young people (i.e. aged 18-30) to work and/or study in the UK on 2-year non-renewable "Youth Mobility" visas. In other words, at any point in time, there are up to 2000 young Taiwanese short-term workers in the UK.

And yes, I was also thinking about Bubblewrap's ridiculously priced unauthentic "Hong Kong style" egg waffles.

(By the way - don't yell 'cultural appropriation', please. While I can't appreciate Bubblewrap, some people certainly did. And it's alright that we get ideas from each other and adapt them to our own tastes - we enrich our respective culinary scenes this way. After all, spaghetti is sometimes cooked chicken soup in Hong Kong, and I don't think Italians would appreciate that either.)

Also on Facebook