 Jack in the Box, more like Jack in the Boba, now they are about to be testing out three new bubble tea drinks at locations in California, David. It's got the internet in a stir or a shake, but it might not be what people think it is. Yay, Boba made it. It took us a long time, but we're mainstream. No, I mean, a lot of people feel pro about it. A lot of people feel con about it. We're gonna get into the internet comments. Of course, our own takeaways, Andrew. This is the first time that Boba, since its inception in the mid-1980s in Taitung, Taiwan, has been really embraced by one of the major American fast food chains. However, Jack in the Boxes, they are more heavy on the West Coast because the headquarters is in San Diego. Right, and then also, you know, Baskin Robbins, Dunkin' Donuts kind of tried to do their own bubble, but Dunkin' Donuts was popping pearls, so this is real tapioca pearls, David. They're going authentic with this one. They got even milk tea, okay? So I want to let everybody, they have milk tea at these Jack in the Boxes. So you're saying you can walk through an American fast food drive-through and be like, yeah, go ahead and give me the brown sugar Boba, and literally the same place that serves a jumbo jack and a sourdough jack is going to give you a tiger sugar knockoff. All right, David, we gotta address a couple of burning questions. Will this hurt mom and pop Boba shops around the areas if Jack in the Box really does this? Or will it grow the market conversely? Yeah, or more importantly, are we going to see ABG's pulling up the Jack in the Box? We don't know, let's talk about it. Please hit that like button, check out other episodes of the Hop Hop Boys. And also, do finally like the late night Asian stoners have a tribe? And let's get into the comments section. Somebody said, with all the competition out there, especially in SoCal, who is actually going to buy it from Jack in the Box? Somebody else said, yeah, but where else are you going to get Boba at like one or two AM? Yes, I do think it's gonna be mostly for the late night crowd. I think it's also gonna open up the market for the ongoing, the current Jack in the Box crowd that I'm not saying people who go to actual Boba shops don't eat at Jack in the Box, but I'm assuming that if you go to Jack in the Box all the time, you probably don't go to Boba shops all the time. I mean, Jack in the Box in SoCal, in my opinion, has always been known for being sort of like the stoner spot because they got this different menu after like 11 PM or 12 AM. It's just like wacky. And they got teriyaki bowls, wacky. You know what I mean? It's just a lot of stuff that, for example, McDonald's, which is headquartered in Illinois is not gonna do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've definitely had some late nights at Jack in the Box in California. Yes, I remember those. Somebody said that Jack in the Box probably noticed that no new Boba shops ever closed down. Is this true or is this confirmation bias? That's like, I think that's confirmation bias, but, but, but it is known that Boba shops generally are pretty good business ideas. They're pretty good investments. You have a high likeliness of sticking around, but I don't know that that means they don't close down, but I do think it's less overhead than obviously starting like a hot food restaurant where you're frying and cooking stuff. It sure seems like it's a better business model, probability wise. Moving on, somebody said cultural appropriation and Asian erasure. I don't know if this was sarcastic, but this is kind of a funny comment. Do you think it's appropriation at all? You would have to say to some extent, yes, but is it in a problematic zone? No. Well, here's my thing. I don't think I can give it the cultural appropriation stamp because they are calling it bubble tea. Like if Jack in the Box calls it bubble tea, right? You don't have to call it Boba. Boba is like essentially the Chinese word. Right. Instead of calling it like Jack Jack bubble bubble milkshakes or trying to Jack the name, right? They call it bubble tea. There is tea in one of the drinks, OK? Because they have a regular milk tea with Boba. They have a vanilla shake with Boba. And then they also have a brown sugar milk drink, OK? So they are offering the Tanzu Naita, the milk tea. Right. Do they need to say that it's from Taiwan or you just don't need to say it? Like is it sort of like, you know how they do the tacos there with the weird meat paste, but they're low-key kind of good? Yeah, guys, I mean, this is the same spot where you can get a teriyaki bowl. You can get the two tacos for $1 that are arguably if it's even beef. And then you also have like egg rolls. You have jalapeno poppers, I think. You have things like the sourdough jack. You got like chicken tenders and chicken sandwiches. We're thinking of some funky stuff in San Diego. Yeah, I don't know what else do they have now. I haven't been to a Jack in the Box in like a year. Somebody said what? They're coming to take out all the Asian small businesses, man. These culture vultures, F-U. All right, so, David, do you think it affects the small mom and pop boba shops around the Jack in the Box that's serving it? I doubt it, honestly. But I can't say that the answer is no. I think they're pricing the bobas at $4.74. If you have a boba shop that is serving that same tier of like lowish, mid, low-end boba nearby, it could. But it's unlikely. Like you said, it's probably more designed to be like an add-on upgrade item to the preexisting customer base that might be ordering just like Oreo milkshakes. And the Oreo shakes at Jack in the Box, by the way, they are pretty good. Wait, David, so does that mean people in the back of Jack in the Box are going to be flipping the patties for the sourdough jack and then they're going to turn around and shake the milk tea? Just ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch. We got a boba milky coming up. And then you're saying over to the side, they've got like a bunch of tapioca pearls, like cooking in brown sugar. Yeah, how are they going to keep the tapioca pearls? I don't know. Oh, that's what someone says. Someone says they can't even make my burgers right. How are they going to keep the tapioca's chewy? I think ultimately they'll taste a little bit more like milkshakes. That's my general idea. It'll probably taste like in between a milkshake and a boba, like some sort of middle point that we haven't seen before. I think it's really going to more so open the market for boba. But obviously they're just testing it. They're going to see how it goes. Obviously, like the person said before, stiff competition in SoCal. So I don't know. Somebody said I'm so sick of fast food places, whether that's Pete's coffee, Starbucks trying to do it for a little bit, Dunkin' Donuts, et cetera, et cetera, Sonic. I'm so sick of them trying to do boba. They never do it right. And they put a bad name on boba. David, is boba becoming one of those things? It's like the token Asian thing that everybody's got to have and try once. It's almost like putting like that Asian woman in a movie and being like, yo, we just need to put like an Asian person in this role somehow. So like we got to all give it a shot even if it doesn't work out. You know what I mean? Yeah, I don't know, man. It's really interesting to think. I think there's so many like possible outcomes. And I'm obviously, I'm not sure which one's going to happen. Somebody said it's either going to be bad and turn newbies off to boba forever or it's going to be good enough. It'll just explode the market because a lot of people that go to Jack in the Box are not Asian. Those people, if they're not familiar, they don't have Asian friends. They don't have like a nice fusion spot by them. They've never been exposed to boba. Now they'll be exposed and they might go spend their money continuously from the beginner level to intermediate tier boba shops all the way to advance, you know, more $10 boba shops. Yeah, but I mean, if you think about it guys, people don't go to like, for example, Asian owned boba shops just for the drink itself. They go for the ambience. You know, you can go there, customize your drink. You can get less sugar, more sugar, different types of milk. Jack in the Box is probably not going to offer that if they ever, you know, mass produce boba because that's too complicated. You think like they're going to be like, okay, welcome to Jack in the Box. Like how do you want your bubble tea? And then they're going to be like, can I get a 30% sugar? Can I get like a non-dairy milk substitute? And then they're going to be like, what? Do you think when Jack in the Box started serving tacos and teriyaki bowls, you know, a couple of decades ago that that ate into the teriyaki or the taco market? Hardly, I think an insignificant amount. All right, ultimately Andrew, what are our takeaways? This is obviously a very silly topic, but I think it's interesting to see, right? This is the first major American, you know, got ads during the Super Bowl type chain to embrace boba. That means you can go through the drive-through and that person even, you know, taking your order whether they drink boba or not, they got to know what you're talking about. Do you think, David, the boba can even be half decent? Literally, do you think the milk tea with boba pearls can be half decent from Jack in the Box? I think it won't taste like boba, but it'll probably be pretty good because their milkshakes are good. Well, if they make, if they have all the same ingredients, milk tea, milk, what, sugar, sweetener, boba, and they have the boba syrup, I mean, I'm assuming it could taste similar to some like kind of cheaper boba. I personally do not think it's going to work out. So they're testing this only at like three locations in SoCal. I don't think it's going to get mass produced. I don't think it's going to go nationwide. I really don't. I do think it's primarily, in my opinion, probably for the, I don't know, I'm guessing the Latino market in SoCal, if you made me say who it's designed for. Yeah. I think ultimately, I think Asian's got to realize that the boba game is just changing all the time. And I think your best bet right now is to open up almost like a kind of a friendly mainstream franchise that's cheaper in a non-Asian area. I'm talking about like deep, deep in an area where there's no boba at all. Like a shared tee. Yeah, within a 10 mile radius, a cha time or something, or you know, whatever the equivalent of a lolly cup is, I know those aren't around anymore. But like open that in an area where there's no other boba shops in a 10 mile radius. I think that that's the real area of opportunity because right now you've got so many boba shops coming in at a low intermediate to advanced level. I think the most area of opportunity is in the newbie rookie. For sure. Boba conversions. The introduction level, like you said, the cha times and the more like $4.50 boba shops. But honestly, boba shops, especially in those non-Asian areas are still just hubs for like Asian culture, particularly Chinese people, you know what I mean? Like even it will end up attracting all the Asian. So that's why I think the Jack in the Box play, it's not there to replace and beat other boba shops. Of course, I don't think Jack in the Box would care if they did overtake some of them. But I think you go to boba shops for many, many more different reasons than just, like you're gonna go through the drive-thru and then get it with your jumbo Jack. It's not gonna be weird. I actually view boba shops in non-Asian regions almost as a replacement of the ice cream milkshake parlors from the 1960s and 70s. Exactly. Like because those aren't around anymore, right? Like the soda parlors. Oh, who's that girl that works for the cha time? Did you see, she's pretty cute. Trust me, I've done that in the past before. I know that's what guys do. Hey, the Beach Boys banana split being replaced by brown sugar milk tea in a milkshake form. Let us know what you guys think in the comments section below. And until next time, we're gonna hop out, boys. We out. Peace.