Informative review

Lol.

Italians can suck my short toe. They didn't even come up with the pizza, it was italian heritage immigrants. Same thing for people who complain about deep dish pizza (which is really just a weird lasagna/casserole) not being pizza.
- Which ‘Italian heritage immigrants’? Are you saying pizza is an American invention?
- Italians should be more like the Japanese and embrace change and just appropriate those fusion dishes and pretend like they invented it. Like if the Japanese were like Italians salmon sushi would have never become a Japanese dish. Before Norwegian salmon farmers came to Japan to convince Japanese chefs to sell raw salmon in the 80’s, salmon sushi didn’t exist since wild salmon often contains parasites. If the Japanese were like Italians they would have scoffed at the idea to sell and eat salmon sushi.
forget Italians, Hawaiians want no part in this travesty

This has bugged me for twenty years.

“Bubble tea” refers to tea that is mixed in a shaker, creating a small layer of bubbles when it is served.

“Bubble tea with pearls” is the one with tapioca pearls in the bottom. Milk tea is tea made with milk.

TIL. I’ve literally never seen the first drink you’re describing. (I’m in the USA)
- They're talking about bubble foam tea. Sure that was a thing but at least in any part of America I've been in, boba tea and bubble tea from the start was the tapioca pearl drink.
  Some people get this purist notion that things can only ever be one thing and screech if someone uses a term differently.
- Early on when it was coming into the US shops made the distinction, but Americans just sort of conflated the two. Makes it confusing if you want bubble tea with jelly and not pearls.
You're referring to "bubble foam tea", which refers to the foam.
"Bubble tea" is something different and refers to the tapioca pearls.
At least, that's the distinction Wikipedia gives, which seems to match the given origins of bubble tea
@Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works the above comment answers your question.

Ive never built up the courage to try even a single bubble tea, partly because its stupid expensive, but mostly because im worried about saying the wrong thing and having people think im strange. Like if you asked for extra sugar on your hot dog or something.

Finding that there's mad purists arguing about what is or isnt doesnt make this any easier.

tbh the worst someone will think is you're a dumb American, which there are a lot of. They won't single you out or care at all.
Even if they do, it'll just be a gossip sesh with coworkers to pass the time and nothing more
at least that's how it is at my grocery store job. The only things I can remember are
an Irish man with a funny accent
someone who wanted double bagged paper for some reason
and some lady who stole a baby bottle and when the toddler picked it up and yelled "MOMMY YOU FOROGOT THIS!! 😃" nobody said a word about
also someone who tried to hide an antibiotic under dog food which I accidentally uncovered when scanning the dog food. When it rung up it was $25 and I felt sooo bad
- I can (potentially) explain the double bagged paper. Growing up in the South that was the de-facto cooling rack, no wire racks or wax paper like you see today. They were cut open, laid on any flat surface, them cookies or cakes or what have you were laid on them to cool. They'd wick away moisture or grease and be easy clean up.
  Free with groceries and if they were double bagged you had enough for a double batch of chocolate chip cookies while also usually guaranteeing (usually) the bag wouldn't split from condensation or something before you got home.
Isn't ketchup pretty much just red sugar gel?
- It varies a lot. From sweet banana, to tomato based, to the original fish sauce.
- Hence it does not belong on tube steak
- On my continent it also has tomato and vinegar lol
- Catsup is a pretty wide ranging condiment. You should look up 18th century cooking videos about catsup
The classic bubble tea is just Taiwanese style milk tea with sugar and tapioca
DO NOT ORDER THE CHEESE TEA
- Do you mean cheese foam? I love cheese foam.
Well the good news is that a Korean corn dog stand will happily add extra sugar and not find the request strange. I guess the lesson is you just have to find where you fit in lol.
The second good news is that food vendors are typically quite happy when you know nothing because they typically like to share new experiences with people.
Just order online so then you don't have to interact with anyone at all except getting it from counter.
Personally not a fan (don't like the taste of teas), but many I know are. Order a basic one the first time however it says on the board, ask for a suggestion saying you never tried this before, ask any other questions you have they will generally answer, like "What do other people do with/put in this" you will either love it or feel you wasted money. Either way it will be a new experience. Oh, don't worry about what others think of your choices (so long as you are not hurting anyone that is) you do you and enjoy, purists will just bring you down
Just pick any flavor you like and ask for it Animal Style.
Its quite mid to bad fruity milk tea with pudding at the bottom
There's a savory crepe place I stopped going to like 80 cents would get you a fully loaded crepe, but it only came with bobba, and I didnt have the language skills to ask for no tea.
Tbh I'm not even sure what bubble tea is. Bubbles, yep. Tea, yep. Tea with bubbles? Have you put washing up liquid in it? Why is it bubbly?
- The "bubbles" refers to the little edible tapioca balls at the bottom.
  The name started as "bo ba", the Chinese name for the tapioca pearls, and the west turned it into "bubble". No idea what the original Chinese means, could just be bubble.
  It's often a sweeter milk tea (though pretty much anything goes these days)
It's basically a premium milkshake and/or slushie coffee/tea. The two questions you should ask are what kind of fruit do you want and how much caffeine should come with it.
Just pick the one that looks like it has the flavors you enjoy, then that's usually it, unless there is an option to pick sugar / ice amounts. In Berlin they also let you pick what "bubbles" you wanted : you had the classic boba with some flavour inside them, but also chunks of jelly, or what I guess was tapioca pearls (more chunky, no juice inside).
Or you do like I always did in China : point to the one that looks best and hope for the best :)

So... What are the bubbles then?

Maybe he uses carbonated water?
Serbia appears to have normal bubble tea places.
- What's normal here? With or without 'bubbles' ?
hookah
Could be popping boba [edit: in my area they call the popping boba just boba and the traditional boba jelly, I did not realize that wasn’t universal]
- Boba IS tapioca

It's like the first time in any restaurant or food place where you're not familiar with the food:

Ask the server what they recommend.

Then say okay
I like to narrow it down to 2 choices and ask which they prefer
They always recommend something that's quick and easy to make and makes the restaurant more money, there's no way for a server to know what you would like, do your own research in advance before ordering somewhere it takes 10 Mins at most
- This is a wild take. Genuinely worried about how you are viewing the folks you interact with.
  I spent a fair amount of time working in the food industry. It is way easier to just say what you legitimately would recommend rather then come up with a bizzare lie.

somebody blows bubbles into the tea with a pipette, that is the serbian way.

Its not bubble tea unless it has Serb spit in it.
- Tbf they'll do that to the food or drinks regardless of what you order

God there really is something wrong with Serbia, thank god they don't have an empire

Instructions unclear; do not use bubble soap mix

Not aware of "Serbian bubble tea" but after looking up the place in the Google maps, it has Shiba Inu logo, a neon sign that reads "Made in Thailand", and a general poppy Asian milk tea shop vibe. The frappes and milk tea don'tlook bad but yeah, misleading image.