Canada, and we're moving rapidly out of bubble tea season now (just the thought of wrapping my hands around anything cold makes me shiver), but I'm also going to be moving to Vegas, where I'm hoping my bubble tea odyssey will reach its glorious conclusion. It's easy to MAKE boba tea, but not easy to make it GOOD. My mother used to make some good ones, but only after many many experimentations. The key is, like one poster says, to soak the pearls in sugar water or honey/syrup after they're cooked. And you have to play around with the cooking time to get the texture right. For tea, we use strong Chinese tea leaves, often a blend of different flavors, and brew some strong tea as a base. Then we add condensed milk to sweeten it. It's the best thing in the world! The best place that serves boba, IMO, is in the town I grew up in. What's unique is they boil the heck out of the boba to the point where it's so swollen, the cell walls practically collapse. And it's also sitting in some sort of warm (simple) syrup. What you get is a gooey spoonful in your cup and the milk tea on top. I can't explain it but it's a totally different experience than the "tea stations" that serve fast food boba. Fresh is one of them. Cook them in a rice cooker! 2x water to pearls, and they will get gooey and wonderful. Store