Etymology

bubble tea

Today it means: Sweetened tea with milk and tapioca pearls, often including fruit juice, syrup and other ingredients. Full definition →

Cantonese 波霸
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The story

  1. Cantonese · derived from波霸“busty woman; tapioca pearl(s)”
  2. English todaybubble tea

A phono-semantic match for boba tea (see that entry for more), ultimately from Cantonese 波霸 (bo1 baa3, “busty woman; tapioca pearl(s)”). The match is from the supposed resemblance of the tapioca pearls to bubbles.

Words from the same roots

Cantonese波霸 all →

boba

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.