Starbucks’ New Popping Pearls Are Extremely Late to the Boba Party | Eater

"The company is rolling out a product called “Pearls” — raspberry popping pearls featured in blue Refresher drinks on its summer menu — and executives billed it as the brand’s “first ever texture innovation.” Baristas have previewed the drinks on TikTok, and the rollout appears aimed at shoring up cold-drink sales after weaker-than-expected quarterly results and forecasted traffic declines. The pearls are essentially popping boba, a topping long popular across Asia and at U.S. frozen-yogurt shops; the chain even tested coffee-flavored popping pearls at some locations in 2021. Critics note that renaming popping boba as “pearls” distances the product from boba tea’s cultural history and frames the company as an innovator despite following an existing trend." - Jaya Saxena