Chun Shui Tang

Chun Shui Tang opened on Taichung's Siwei Street on May 20, 1983, under the name Yangxian Tea Shop, founded by Liu Han-Chieh. Hot tea sold poorly in summer, so Liu began experimenting with cold tea drinks shaken in a cocktail shaker, an idea he traced back to a trip to Japan where he had seen coffee served cold — an unusual pairing of technique and inspiration for a traditional tea shop at the time.

In 1986, during further testing, the shop added tapioca pearls to sweetened milk tea; the drink launched formally in 1987 under the name that stuck: Bubble Tea. Traditional tea sellers initially dismissed Chun Shui Tang as a betrayer of tea culture for the innovation, an accusation that reads very differently now that bubble tea has become one of Taiwan's most recognized cultural exports.

Chun Shui Tang still operates as a full tea house rather than a to-go bubble tea chain, serving loose-leaf tea alongside the drink it is credited with inventing. Being the widely credited birthplace of a beverage now sold on nearly every continent is a rare claim for any single shop to hold, let alone one still doing business under close to its original name.