Recently, few internet moments have ignited as much discussion about cultural appropriation as Simu Liu’s comments on bubble tea during an episode of Canada’s Dragons’ Den.
If you haven’t seen the now-viral clip, it played out as follows: during an episode of the Shark Tank-style show, the founders of Quebec-based bottled bubble tea brand Bobba, Sébastien Fiset and Jess Frenette, sought US$1 million in exchange for an 18% stake in their company.
When introducing the product, Frenette described bubble tea as a “trendy, sugary drink” that often left consumers “unsure of its ingredients”. Fiset followed by explaining that their company had “transformed this beloved beverage into a convenient, healthier, ready-to-drink experience,” with just “three simple ingredients”: high-quality tea, fruit juice and popping boba.
You might also like: Simu Liu talks new projects, his new venture capital fund, and his mission to advocate for Asian representation
Simu Liu criticised a pitch for a bottled bubble tea business, accusing it of cultural appropriation (Photo: courtesy of CBC)
Liu was quick to push back against the idea of a Montreal-based company attempting to disrupt the boba market by marketing it as “healthier”. Following the episode, the brand faced considerable online backlash, with many netizens rallying behind the Shang-Chi star, while others argued that reinventing products is simply part of market evolution.
Amidst the controversy—touching on issues of cultural appropriation and lingering racist stereotypes surrounding Asian cuisine—Tatler spoke to journalist and award-winning cookbook author Clarissa Wei, along with Po Chen, founder of Hong Kong’s plant-based bubble tea chain Mother Pearl, to explore the deeper implications.
“‘Healthy’ is, I suppose, a relative term”
By - Journalist and award-winning author Clarissa Wei
Is boba unhealthy? A long (and racist) history of stereotypes surrounding Asian cuisine
One has to question whether Bobba’s product truly adds value to the market with its “healthier” ingredients.
For Clarissa Wei—journalist and recent winner of the IACP Julia Child First Book Award for her debut cookbook Made in Taiwan: Recipes and Stories from the Island Nation (2023)—the company’s claims present a two-fold issue. Firstly, Bobba is hardly the first to address the healthiness of bubble tea.
“The question of what’s in boba and what makes it healthy has been discussed in Taiwan and Asia for decades,” Wei tells Tatler. The debate is far from new and doesn’t inherently disrupt the space in the way the founders claim.
For Po Chen, founder of Mother Pearl, the focus on health has always been personal. Since 2020, she’s crafted recipes with her family’s well-being in mind: “Our drinks have been heavily influenced by my husband’s family history of diabetes and my children’s dairy allergies, as well as my own experience as a vegan,” she explains.
Chen’s approach is about honouring the roots of bubble tea while offering new options with added “health benefits”—using homemade plant-based milk, natural sweeteners, and superfood powders like turmeric and matcha. For her, it’s about finding the “right balance between tradition and innovation”.
Bobba’s bottled bubble tea (Photo: Instagram / @bobbaofficiel)
Mother Pearl matcha boba (Photo: courtesy of Mother Pearl)
But Wei points to a second issue, suggesting that the debate may simply be misplaced.
“What’s irritating about the company is their claim to disrupt the boba market by making ‘healthy’ boba,” she says. “In reality, freshly made boba can’t be packaged and canned because it only has a shelf life of three days.”
“‘Healthy’ is, I suppose, a relative term,” Wei concludes.
This rush to label Asian foods as “unhealthy” is far from new. The United States—and much of the Western world—has a long history of racism toward Asian cuisine, which first manifested in the fearmongering around MSG (Monosodium Glutamate). Despite being a common ingredient in Asian cooking, enhancing the umami flavour, MSG was demonised for decades by Western consumers, despite being declared safe by the FDA, World Health Organisation, Health Canada, and other scientific bodies.
Liu found the claim of making “healthier” boba uncomfortably familiar, remarking on the show: “There’s an issue of taking something that’s very distinctly Asian in its identity and, quote-unquote, ‘making it better’”.
Cultural appropriation, online backlash and a satisfying resolution
By positioning itself as a Western-owned company claiming to “improve” a beloved Taiwanese product, Bobba appeared to many netizens as simply trying to market bubble tea to a Western audience.
This taps into a long history of Western businesses appropriating Asian culture for profit. Take, for instance, Karen Taylor’s The Breakfast Cure, which claimed to sell an “improved” version of congee tailored to Western palates, or nutritionist Arielle Haspel’s ill-fated Lucky Lee’s, a so-called “clean” American-Chinese restaurant that promised Chinese food without the usual “bloated and icky” feeling.
“I started this venture company for many reasons, but primarily to uplift minority entrepreneurs,” Liu told the Bobba founders on Dragons’ Den. “Not only do I feel that isn’t happening here, but I would be supporting a business that profits from something deeply tied to my cultural heritage”.
After an intense online backlash—which Liu later condemned on social media—the company issued an official apology, acknowledging that Liu had “raised very valid points regarding cultural appropriation”.
Reflecting on the incident, Po Chen of Mother Pearl shares: “Watching the Bobba pitch and Simu Lui's authentic reaction sparked a deep sense of understanding. The pitch lacked the reverence and respect that Asian culinary heritage deserves, leading to a rightful backlash from the internet. Authenticity is paramount in representing cultural cuisines, and we believe the online community resonated with this sentiment”.
True to his values, Liu used the controversy as an opportunity to spotlight Twrl, an Asian-American boba brand, even asking them to send his team a “pitch deck”. A potential dream come true for founders Olivia Chen and Pauline Ang, who have been trying to land a spot on Shark Tank for years.
READ MORE
Cultural appropriation or appreciation? Why representation matters within the fashion industry