Is there a difference between shaken or non-shaken bubble teas?

By:Lillian

From the hand-shaken black tea in the 1980s to the bubble tea (milk tea with tapioca balls) in the year 2000, the trend has led up to the year 2020 with a dazzling selection of drink types. In the very beginning, people thought out of curiosity that tea is for old people, but if I added sugar to it and then prepare it using the shaking approach from cocktails, it might just be cool and delicious to drink! This has produced the hand-shaken black tea that is now widely popular in Taiwan. Young people began to enjoy drinking tea and then later on in the bubble tea period, more ingredients were added in and the hand-shaken milk tea with chewy tapioca balls offered an even more aromatic and delicious taste, this was the birth of the concept of hand-shaken drinks!

With the development of time, more and more famous chain store brands do not carry out the shaking action during the preparation process (except for sorbets or hot drinks) for many reasons, such as the difficulty in employees’ educational training, the level of difficulty in stipulating the SOP, as well as believing that the taste of tea does not require this action…etc., which also made those who are new to the business or who have been in the business for a long period to start doubting whether or not there is indeed the need for this action? However, it is undeniable that the action of shaking in the preparation will definitely affect the final taste of the drink.

The store basically uses the Cobbler Shaker, which is composed of three parts, the shaker body, the strainer and the lid. The design principle is that the space between the strainer and the lid will form a circulating air chamber and during our process of shaking, air will collide with the ice cubes and the liquid inside this air chamber will not only bring out the aromatic substances of tea to accentuate the tea fragrance, allowing the texture to be foamier, but further reducing the astringency of the tea. Therefore, shaking can certainly make drinks taste better.

With the writer’s experimental spirit, the outcomes for the tests on the differences between the tastes are as shown below:

※ All other criteria and environment are set to be the same, with Pekoe Green Tea as the base.

However, everyone’s application of force differs and considering the training problems with the practical operating personnel, some stores would introduce the shaker machine, the shaking machine, or even use the juice blender and tea blender to reduce the human-based variables (e.g.: the bubble tea hidden in the alleys of Banqiao recommended by Korean teacher Paik Jong-won last year uses a machine to blend the milk tea), which is rather a great proposal for stable quality as long as the parameters are set. If you ask the writer what the difference is, it is probably the same feeling as the majority of the products on the market and that is manmade vs machine-made. In conclusion, the writer believes that shaking or not is a free option to the stores, but viewing the evolutionary history of hand-shaken drinks, in general, along with actual experience, it is undeniable that the taste of tea after shaking is more outstanding and the texture is smoother.

※ Additional note: The writer recommends to those who want to explore the correct postures of shaking to refer to the explanatory video, The devil is hidden in the details – The various details of Shake for cocktails.

References:
1. Internal lecture notes for TaChungHo teaching session – Written by Hsiao-Chi Teng, Chen En Food Product Enterprise Co., Ltd.
2. Video: Hard Shake, Eason of Bar CityNorth demonstrating Gimlet
3. Video: The devil is hidden in the details – The various details of Shake