If you live in Berlin, particularly in the trendy (former East Berlin) areas of Prenzlauer Berg or Mitte, you can’t have helped notice the emergence of a particular type of cafe, the bubble tea cafe.
Apparently bubble tea originated in Taiwan during the 1980s. It has been a popular drink in the US and A for years and now it has made it to the German capital. I have to admit that I have not yet summoned the courage to walk into one these cafes, somewhat put off by their non-appealing look: they tend to be loud, bright and colourful (in a Japanese comic sort of way) and attract a young crowd of teenagers. Not my cup of tea and certainly not very gemütlich!
What I find striking about the bubble tea cafes in Berlin is that they seem to have sprung out of nowhere and suddenly you see them everywhere, even in the Alexander Platz underground station, an addition to the various smelly burger joints and shops selling sandwiches, donuts, muffins and Japanese crepes.
It reminds me of another trend that has also become extremely popular in recent months, the frozen yogurt shop. This seems to be particularly prevalent in the fashion conscious Mitte district of Berlin, where being skinny is a way of life. After all you could never possibly imagine a Mitte hipster digging into an über-caloric chocolate ice cream!
Luckily I live in an area that is densely populated by children and therefore I have a choice of over 10 different ice cream shops just in my neighbourhood, selling all sorts of exotic varieties, such as lemon and basil or strawberry and mint, but more about this in spring/summer. Most of these places are now closed and will not reopen until sometime in March/April. So until then it’s either bubble tea or a glass of traditional Glühwein to warm up during those cold Berlin winter nights.
