Northwest Austin Edition | April 2023

FIRST LOOK

BY ANGELA LIM

The teriyaki chicken banh mi is one of several varieties oered. ($9.25)

GRACE DICKENSCOMMUNITY IMPACT

BUILDING A DRINK There are three steps for building a drink at Boba Bites & Tea.

1 Pick a drink:

• Fruit tea • Milk tea • Chocolate • Matcha

• Taro • Ube

From left: Bubble tea options include the original chocolate, ube milk tea, the Forever in Love pink signature drink, strawberry matcha and coconut coee.

From left: Lin-lin Yang, Mike Yang and Tram Nguyen opened Boba Bites & Tea in December.

• Lemonade • And others

ANGELA LIMCOMMUNITY IMPACT

Pick a drink style:

Boba Bites & Tea Shop oers 60-plus bubble tea options to try H aving spent over 25 years in the restaurant industry, Mike Yang wanted to eventually have his own restaurant. Before Boba Bites & Tea opened in December in Northwest Austin, Nguyen came back from a trip to Vietnam, where she gained inspi- ration from bubble tea’s popularity

• Hot • Cold, or frozen • Breeze, or iced

Pick a topping:

• Caramel an • Mixed-fruits jelly • Cheese Jell-O • Milk Jell-O

• Ube balls • Taro balls • And 11 others

shop’s specialty drink, Forever in Love, is a combination of strawberry and lychee avors topped with heart jelly. Ube drinks, made with purple yams, and other fruit teas are popular items as well, Yang said. Hoping to follow in the footsteps of other successful small businesses in Austin, Yang said he aims to open multiple locations for Boba Bites & Tea in the future. Angela Lim is a reporting fellow for a Community Impact and The University of Texas partnership with a focus on growing and diverse neigh- borhoods. The project is supported by the School of Journalism and Media’s Dallas Morning News Innovation Endowment.

Boba Bites & Tea 8650 Spicewood Springs Road, Ste. 108, Austin 512-551-9406 www.bobabite.com Hours: 11 a.m.-9 p.m. daily

However, when his ideas for his business did not go according to plan, he helped open Boba Bites & Tea—a boba shop that his mother, Lin-lin Yang, and business partner Tram Nguyen had always dreamt of. Even though he has culinary experience, Yang said having a boba shop came as a new challenge for him. “It’s a lot more work than running an actual restaurant,” Yang said. “I thought opening a boba shop wouldn’t be as hard, but it’s not as easy.”

there, Yang said. The vision for the store’s drinks and aesthetics came from Nguyen, including the heart-shaped cups the shop became known for on social media. “That was all Tram’s idea,” Yang said. “She wanted to make this place really cute, you know? And so she decided to use the heart-shaped cups, and it just kind of developed.” Aside from banh mi, or Vietnam- ese sandwiches, and desserts, Boba Bites & Tea oers at least 60 drinks on its menu in-store and online. The

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PARLIAMENT PLACE

March 4 - Sept. 10 wildflower.org/ seeing-the-invisible

An Augmented Reality Contemporary Art Exhibition

NORTHWEST AUSTIN EDITION • MAY 2023