New bubble tea bar Boba Shack opens its doors in Doncaster city centre

Boba Shack is now in business on the corner of St Sepulchre Gate and High Street – and is being billed as Doncaster’s first dedicated bubble tea shop.

Bubble tea has become popular with younger drinkers and comes in a variety of fruit flavours.

It is the firm’s second branch after a store was opened in Chesterfield earlier this year.

Steve Smith and Philip Price are behind the venture.

Philip said: “My daughter, Jessica, who is 14, has over the past year managed to persuade me and her sister on numerous occasions to drive her all the way to Meadowhall to get bubble tea. You can buy it in Sheffield and Nottingham but as far as I know there is nowhere in between.

"We’re the talk of the town with the younger generation – we got 500 to 600 followers on Facebook from our first post."

For the uninitiated, bubble tea is a non-alcoholic beverage which originated in Taiwan and has soared in popularity in UK cities in recent years.

Philip said: “Fundamentally, it’s a cocktail for kids.

“You can choose a fruit tea, which is either an assam black or jasmine green, a milk tea with dairy, almond or soya milk, or a coffee. Then you choose flavourings, we have seventeen flavours including mango, vanilla and watermelon – it’s like a pick and mix and the combinations are endless.

"It comes with the brown tapioca pearls (boba) that we have to cook and there are popping bobas which are balls filled with intense fruit juice. It’s served with a big fat 12mm straw so you can suck up the balls.

"There are also jellies, which are made from coconut, in a range of flavours including apple, grape, lycee, and these little bits sit at the bottom.”

He added: "We’ll get the first business up and running to see how it works. We would happily have 20 or 30 shops in small towns with a population of about 100,000 if we can set up at a low enough cost.”

On the menu there are a variety of traditional fruit teas, coffees, and milk teas, as well as the trending bubble teas.