All Trends Start with Immigrants

A Poem

Afternoon tea envelopes a different corner of the universe when it Bubbles.

No scones, no crumpets, no crust-less sandwiches. A plastic cup instead of fine china painted in the POC (People’s Republic), for an often sweet concoction, that grew out of the ROC. (which is, of course, the Republic of)

Do you even know the difference? Between the Two Chinas, I mean.

One brought tea drinking to the world in fine ceramic cups 2,000 years ago. The other brought Bubble Tea — aka Boba — to the masses, like me.

That blast of ’80s ego and hip indulgence didn’t hit our Motherland — these United States — until those crazy, weird, egotistical ’90s. Me, Me, Me, a generation 20 years after the fact.

L.A., they say, is where Bubbles became Boba, and teenagers started going for their obligatory tapioca fix after school. A little like that long-ago Duchess Across the Pond who got hungry ’round 4 o’clock and craved a little pick-me-up.

But that was so 19th-Century. And SoCal, circa 1999, was more than all that and a bag of chips.

Emporiums like Tapioca Express and Lollicup devolved into Kung Fu Tea in the Aughts

because White folks appropriated what wasn’t theirs and needed a name they understood.

All trends start with immigrants. Until, of course, we make you walk a Trail of Cultural Tears, and try to take what you create.

But I still crave my fix at 4 o’clock, regardless. In a plastic, not China, cup, please. Because I live a Boba Life — throwaway, and delicious.