Waaaay Beyond the Bubble...and sorry, Courtney, I blogged first!

In fact, 704 miles Beyond the Bubble. My favorite place to go around Prin was surprisingly only 10 minutes away, a feat that seems impossible for a college located in little old Elsah. It's a drink store run by a Principia alum and her mom called Beyond the Bubble, which is an ironic play on words because it was supposed to be a way to escape the phenomenon of the Prin bubble where you never see anyone other than fellow Principians. However, "the Bubble", as we called this little place in Grafton, was almost another little Prino satellite. You were pretty much guaranteed to run into at least one other student or faculty or staff member when you went there. Nevertheless, no matter who you ran into, this was one place that was hard to say goodbye to. What can I say about those little bobas of tapioca goodness? The tea part is basically a milk tea base combined with fruity flavors of your choice, and the bubbles are actually called boba, which look like large fish eyeballs but are really giant tapioca balls. It's great to watch someone who's never had it before get there first boba. They give you gigantic straws so you can suck the boba up, and the first reflex is usually, "What the heck is this in my mouth?!", but after you get used to it, you start to like chewing your drink.

Anyway, on one of our last visits, my roommate Marcia and I decided to purchase at-home Bubble Tea kits. She got pineapple, and I decided on honeydew, and then we swapped half of each of ours so we could try both flavors. It's been sitting around waiting to be used all summer, and yesterday was the day! Courtney took the day off work, so in the afternoon, we watched Becoming Jane and made Bubble Tea.

First of all, uncooked boba looks and smells like dogfood. They're these brown, crumbly balls, and they permeate the entire bag with their smell.
Then you plop them in boiling water. Gotta get better, right? Wrong. Ewwwwww
But, finally after they boil for about 30 minutes, they turn black and start looking like boba are supposed to. I was going to say normal, but there's not really anything normal about these things! You can kind of see them through the steam.
Courtney liked the next step a lot! Give the boba a little shower... She liked the plopping, slurping sounds it made. It reminded me of the banana noise, and for those of you who know me, well, yuck!

Sorry, folks, the video doesn't want to upload right now.

After it was all rinsed, we made our smoothies. We used Jasmine Tea, which was recommended, but it smelled (and consequently tasted) a little too much like herbal lotion, so I don't think I'd do that again. Here are Courtney and I with our finished products--she had Chai and I had honeydew:Courtney and I decided that someday we'll have th Baker Sister's Cafe, and one side will serve fried dill pickles and fried green tomatoes, and the other will be Bubble Tea. Emmeline and L-Louise look forward to doin' business with y'all in the the future, loves.

By far, the funniest part of this experiment was the warning label. Watch out Gramma!