By Yasmine Cardenas This pandemic has caused shortages in products such as toilet paper, flour, pepperoni, aluminum cans, and ketchup. Boba has now fallen victim to a shortage across boba cafes in the U.S.
Boba lovers are warned there may a shortage over the next few weeks which could take months to alleviate. Since the pandemic kept us locked away in our homes for most of the year. People had no other choice but to have their favorite food and drinks delivered to their homes. Market Watch reported that boba was the most popular delivery item in California, Hawaii, and Michigan.
Boba, known as bubble tea, is consists of tapioca starch. Boba cafes here in the U.S. rely on shipments of boba pearls from Taiwan and tapioca starch from Thailand. Both of which are facing shipping delays.
Products like flavored powders, syrups, and disposables. It's also trapped in shipping containers and utilized to produce wonderful bubble tea drink combos. These troublesome shipping delays are a result of a traffic jam on the West Coast shipping ports due to the pandemic.
To illustrate just how bad the problem has become, owners Bin and Andrew of Boba Guys have stated in an Instagram post that their stores and others alike are experiencing an industry-wide shortage of boba pearls. They noted that some shops have already completely run out of boba. And others will run out in a matter of weeks. Several industries have taken hard hits during the pandemic and the boba industry is no exception.
The issue of when boba wholesalers will receive their shipments remains unclear. If you need a bubble tea fix. I would head over to your local boba spot and savor it as best you can! At this point, we’re just trying to figure out what product will succumb to the pandemic’s wrath next.