The Bubble Tea Shop, a Vancouver-based venue specializing in bubble tea and egg waffles, also goes by the acronym BTS. So perhaps it’s no surprise that it has become the go-to spot for BTS fans, aka ARMY. But, according to couple and co-owners Ivanna and Karl Tang, the name was pure coincidence.
The store opened 10 years ago – before BTS’ 2013 debut – and Ivanna and Karl weren’t even aware of the shared acronym with the mega boyband until BTS fans pointed it out. Now, the shop is renowned for more than just its bubble tea and egg waffles.
The Bubble Tea Shop has become a hub for Vancouver’s K-pop community, hosting regular events for various fandoms and celebrating idols’ birthdays and other milestones. In addition to treats and drinks customized for each event, fans have come to know the shop for its K-pop market and merch trading events.
JoongAng Daily caught up with Ivanna to talk about K-pop, running a bubble tea business, and their menu suggestions for BTS’ V, Jimin, and Jin should they stop by.
Interview edited for clarity.
Tell us the idea behind the shop.
Karl and I have been running The Bubble Tea Shop for around 10 years now. We started this shop [because of] our love for bubble tea in the beginning – we simply love drinking bubble tea. So we asked ourselves, “Why not open a bubble tea shop?” Free bubble tea for us!
We also wanted to be straightforward and clear about what we were doing, so that is how The Bubble Tea Shop was born — BTS is short for The Bubble Tea Shop, and the K-pop group BTS [with the same name] was pure coincidence. We were already in business before their debut in 2013. Our regular customers, who are also K-pop fans, told us about this name match and we were like, “Hey!”
Do you follow K-pop as well?
I didn’t know much about K-pop in our earlier years of running our business to be honest. But so many of our customers approached us about K-pop, and we felt this sense of community and belonging through them.
As time passed, we naturally learned so much about K-pop and took a keen interest in Korean culture by holding events where people share their love for Korean music, so we now listen to K-pop and watch videos. K-pop, to us, means bringing people together through shared interests.
How did The Bubble Tea Shop manage to bring the K-pop community together?
I personally do not see many places that can bring K-pop fans frequently together in Vancouver because organizing events for thousands of people requires energy, time, and money.
But we try extremely hard to open up free space and events for fans and vendors as we just want to keep the culture alive. Just because the K-pop group BTS is due for their military enlistment soon, for example, it doesn’t mean that fans will stop supporting BTS.
Fans will continue supporting them and want to have them close [and] in their lives.
We also aim to stay connected to our customers closely through social media and create a more accessible space for our customers to buy K-pop merchandise.
So we started bringing K-pop merchandise and products like albums, photocard holders, and plushies directly through our partners in Korea. People can buy merchandise from other big websites, but some products can only be bought in Korea. We strongly believe in celebrating all K-pop groups with our customers and K-pop fans in any way we can in Vancouver.
If BTS came to Vancouver one day and came to your store, what would you recommend?
It will be bubble tea for sure! And the special drinks that we always create for each event we hold. But, we would create menus to each BTS member’s liking. Since Jin likes strawberries but not strawberry flavours, we would make strawberry menu for him. Jimin is called Baby Mochi so we would give him bubble tea and mochi egg waffles.
We actually offer a menu to our customers that is K-pop-themed during our events. So, in our next event on Jin’s birthday, we’ll include a strawberry-flavoured special drink. That way, fans can connect with their K-pop bias through food and look forward to something new while visiting here.
What are some of your plans for the shop?
COVID-19 and the expansion of famous bubble tea chain brands in the last few years have hit small businesses like ours hard. It’s tough, so we actually don’t know where we will be in five years, but we feel lucky to reach our 10 years in business.
We definitely owe this to our loyal customers who come to our K-pop events, and that gives us a reason to continue on and stay open for them. We want to keep holding these events, collaborate with small businesses and K-pop vendors who need space to start.
And we hope to make these events bigger because we want to give back to our customers and the community. We are so lucky to continue engaging with our customers on our Instagram @thebbtshop since [the] beginning and hope to build a stronger community through our shop.
What can K-pop fans look forward to?
We’d love to celebrate as many K-pop groups as possible, but our next events are Jin’s and V’s birthdays in December. We will also do collaborations with vendors in Vancouver to hold events for K-pop groups Seventeen and Stray Kids.
If anyone in Vancouver is willing to collaborate with us to hold events for their favourite K-pop groups – especially girl groups – at The Bubble Tea Shop, we’re always looking forward to more creative ways to celebrate K-pop.
We want to send our thanks to our customers for supporting us for 10 years and believing in what we do while we put on our events and bring everyone together.
The Bubble Tea Shop can be found at 105 – 4651 No. 3 Road, Richmond, and 1764 Manitoba Street, Vancouver.
By KDC (K Daily Canada) Staff
