National Bubble Tea Day is a United States food and drink observance on April 30 celebrating bubble tea, the sweet, chewy tea drink also known as boba or pearl milk tea.
Last updated February 26, 2026 · by the
Holiday Calendar Team
“On April 30, 2018, our 8th birthday, we founded National Bubble Tea Day.
Kung Fu Tea, the largest bubble tea chain in the United States, founded National Bubble Tea Day on April 30, 2018, its eighth anniversary. The company chose April 30 because that is the date it was founded in Queens, New York, in 2010, so the holiday doubles as the brand's birthday.
Two Taiwanese teahouses spent a decade in court arguing over who poured the world's first cup of bubble tea. In 2019, a Taiwan court ended the fight with a ruling that pleased almost no one and delighted everyone: bubble tea cannot be patented, and anyone is free to make it, so there was no point deciding who invented it. The most beloved drink to come out of Taiwan in forty years officially belongs to all of us.
That verdict is a strange and fitting way to think about National Bubble Tea Day. On April 30, fans across the United States raise a sweating plastic cup, plunge an oversized straw through the lid, and pull up a mouthful of soft tapioca pearls. The drink is a tea base, milk, a handful of chewy pearls, and a wide straw built specifically to carry them. Simple parts, a small obsession.
The American holiday is younger than the drink by about three decades, and it has a tidier origin story. Keep reading for who started the day, why it lands on April 30, and the long, friendly grudge match behind the boba in your cup.
DEALS & OFFERS
National Bubble Tea Day ran on April 30. Here’s who celebrated with offers this year.
BY THE NUMBERS
Bubble tea was invented in Taiwan in the 1980s, but the question of exactly who invented it has never been settled, and the contest is genuine. Two teahouses tell two different stories, and both are still in business.
Hanlin Tea Room makes the earlier claim. Its founder, Tu Tsong-He, says that in 1986 he was wandering the Yamuliao wet market in Tainan when he spotted fenyuan, the white tapioca balls he had loved as a child. He added them to green tea, decided the pale spheres suspended in the gold looked like a pearl necklace, and called the result "pearl green tea." His first Hanlin shop opened that October.
Chun Shui Tang tells it differently. The chain's product manager, Lin Hsiu-Hui, says she created the first bubble milk tea at a staff meeting in 1988, when she poured the tapioca balls she had brought with her into her iced Assam tea, just for fun. According to her account, everyone at the table loved it, and within a couple of months it outsold every other iced tea the shop made.
The drink itself reaches back even further. In 1949, a tea seller named Chang Fan Shu opened a shop selling hand-shaken iced tea made with a cocktail shaker, producing a frothy "foam tea." That shaking step is still part of how bubble tea is made today.
For years the rivalry simmered, and in 2009 it boiled over into a lawsuit. Hanlin and Chun Shui Tang fought for a decade over who could claim to have invented bubble tea. The case finally closed in 2019, when a Taiwan court decided the drink was something anyone could make and that it was therefore unnecessary to crown a single inventor. The pearls, the court effectively ruled, belong to everyone.
National Bubble Tea Day has nothing to do with that Taiwanese feud, and a much shorter history. It belongs to Kung Fu Tea, the largest bubble tea chain in the United States, which was founded in Queens, New York, on April 30, 2010. Eight years later, on April 30, 2018, the company declared National Bubble Tea Day, timing it to its own eighth birthday. The date is the chain's anniversary, so the holiday and the company blow out the candles together. Kung Fu Tea calls itself the founder of the day and says other bubble tea companies, at home and abroad, have since joined in.
TIMELINE
AT A GLANCE
We're all old friends in the tea industry. The lawsuit with Chun Shui Tang is a must-fight battle for truth but nothing personal. We will let the people who drink our tea be the judge.
GOOD TO KNOW
Bubble tea is a national icon. It featured in Taiwan state banquets for three straight years and was among the new official emojis added in 2020.
McDonald's added bubble tea to its menus in 2012, putting the Taiwanese drink in fast-food chains across the country.
Former banker Assad Khan, who first tried bubble tea in New York in 2009, opened the chain Bubbleology in London's Soho in 2011 and helped turn it into a mainstream lifestyle drink.
Kung Fu Tea grew from a single Queens shop in 2010 into the country's largest bubble tea brand and the founder of National Bubble Tea Day.
WHY THIS DAY MATTERS
A symbol of Taiwan's self-confidence and identity.
A Taiwanese food historian calls bubble tea a symbol of the island's self-confidence and identity. The drink served at state banquets carries a sense of place far beyond its sweetness, which is part of why the question of who invented it mattered enough to litigate for a decade.
Bubble tea spread worldwide through the Taiwanese diaspora and a few determined entrepreneurs, reaching German McDonald's by 2012 and London's Soho by 2011. National Bubble Tea Day gives that global drift a fixed American date to gather around.
Market researchers now measure bubble tea in billions of dollars and forecast steady growth for years to come. The neighborhood boba shop, it turns out, sits on top of a fast-expanding worldwide business.
GET INVOLVED
EDITOR'S PICK
BUILD
SUPPORT
SETTLE
MAKE
Test your knowledge
No. It is an unofficial food and drink observance, not a federal or public holiday, so businesses, banks, and schools stay open.
Celebrate National Tapioca Day with delicious desserts, drinks, and snacks - explore the unique flavors of tapioca today!
Cool off this summer with National Iced Tea Day! Enjoy a refreshing glass of your favorite iced tea and relax in the sunshine.
Brew a cup of tea and enjoy the aroma! National Tea Day is the perfect day to celebrate your favorite teas, tisanes, and more.
Celebrate International Tea Day with a cup of your favorite tea - enjoy its health benefits and calming effects while sipping away!
