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The listening exercises in Business Spotlight Plus (p. 5) are based on the article “Asia’s favourite drink” (Names & News, p. 8). Here, we provide you with the audio file and transcript.
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Asia’s favourite drink
Bubble tea is traditionally a sweet, milky drink with chewyzäh; hier: kaugummiähnlichchewy tapioca ballTapiokakugel, -perletapioca balls. Sometimes called “boba tea”, it was most likely invented in Taiwan in the 1980s. Today, it’s popular all over Asia. In China, for example, the market for new flavoured teas saw turnoverUmsatzturnover of about $20 billionMilliarde(n)billion in 2021 — twice the size of the country’s coffee market. However, as growth in their home market has slowed down, Chinese brandMarkebrands have been expanding across South East Asia.
No bubble-tea brand has grown faster than Mixue, which means “honey snow” in Mandarin. found sth.etw. gründenFounded in 1997, the company now has more than 36,000 stores, making it the second-largest made-to-orderauf Bestellung hergestelltmade-to-order beverageGetränkbeverage chain in the world, behind Starbucks. Mixue’s big factories in China help keep costs low, which supports the brand’s marketing strategy — cheap and fun. Its logo is a singing snowman.
Since Indonesia is a key market, however, Mixue is planning to open factories there. It has also adapted well to local conditions. In 2023, the Indonesian Ulema councilRatCouncil, a religious committee, decided that Mixue’s bubble tea was “halal”, meaning it’s acceptable according to Islamic law. That’s important in a country that has more than 240 million Muslims. Now, as bubble tea becomes increasingly popular in Western countries, Mixue is again looking for new markets. The singing snowman is on the be on the marchauf dem Vormarsch seinmarch.