When Danny Chansavath and his girlfriend Angie Nguyen moved to Wilmington from New York, they were disappointed by the lack of access to one of their favorite treats: bubble tea.
 
Bubble tea is a Taiwanese drink containing a tea base mixed with fruit or milk, to which chewy tapioca balls (known as bubbles, pearls or boba) or fruit jelly are added.
 
Not long after their arrival in Wilmington, Chansavath and Nguyen met Dyhn and Kenleigh Le, and the four began brainstorming ideas for a bubble tea business in the Port City.
 
“We wanted to create a place where we could introduce the community to bubble tea and also provide a place for students to hang out and study,” Chansavath said. “We visited tons of bubble tea shops and cafes and took what we liked best about each of our favorite places and combined them.”
 
They came up with TAP Tea Bar and found space in Racine Commons near the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Chansavath said that a big part of his job as a manager is to educate people on what exactly bubble tea is.
 
“Only about a quarter of the people who have come in have tried it,” Chansavath said. “Another quarter have heard of it but never tried it, and about half have never even heard of it.”
 
Chansavath said that while some shops offer hundreds of flavor combinations, TAP’s goal, as one of Wilmington’s first bubble tea bars, is to introduce customers to all the essential flavors.
 
He describes how customers select their tea as a four-step process. First, customers select from milk tea (hot tea), refresher (iced tea) or frostea (blended with ice or ice cream to create a slushie or milkshake consistency). Next, customers select black, green or oolong tea.

Step three is to select a flavor, and step four is to select the toppings. The traditional topping is tapioca, but other popular toppings include lychee jelly, green tea jellies and fruit poppers, which are the small translucent beads of fruit juice commonly seen at frozen yogurt bars.

Some toppings, such as tapioca, are designed merely to provide texture to the drink, while others provide flavor as well. All teas are dairy-free, with the exception of the frosteas, which are blended with ice cream.
 
Drinks range in price from $4.25 to about $6, depending on the size and number of toppings. Customers will also find a variety of Asian candies and snacks, and TAP will soon offer grab-n-go items from Farmin’.
 
TAP Tea Bar is located in Unit 9 at Racine Commons, 250 Racine Drive, and offers free Wi-Fi and café-style seating for 22 guests. Hours are 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Sunday-Thursday and 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
 
Have a tip for Restaurant Roundup? Email [email protected].