A New Adventure: Bauble Boba

We’re trying something new! Come join us.

A love story in two acts:

ACT I: Once upon a time, Liz falls in love with fountain pens and stationery and buys it from abroad at incredibly high prices. Jon laments. Jon then decides to take matters into his own hands, and all of sudden there is a fountain pen shop on Dundas Street West peddling lotions and potions.

ACT II: Over the next decade, while selling fountain pens, Liz discovers and consumes a vast quantity of bubble tea at prohibitive take-out prices. Jon laments. Jon then decides to take matters into his own hands.

Jon came across this fun and surprising opportunity to take on a DIY bubble tea business, called Bauble Boba. A woman named Carol started this online shop in 2020, and now we’re taking the reins. Don’t ask me how this happened.

Bauble Boba sells the supplies and materials you need to make your own bubble tea at home, including tapioca, popping boba, jelly, tea, flavoured mixes, straws, and tall cups. Ingredients are sourced from Taiwan, and, at home, you can customize your bubble tea however you like, or follow instructions to make different combinations. You can buy them in kits, with everything you need to get started, or just the supplies you need to keep going.

We’ve moved Bauble Boba into a space actually very close to the main shop, and it’s been exciting and weird and nostalgic to re-enter into this phase of starting something totally new. Very reminiscent of our old days, in more ways than one.

More to come, as always.

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You might be asking yourself: What is happening, Liz? I am asking myself the same thing, on the regular.  What is happening! I have no idea. One day I’m drinking Chatime and the next I’m drinking Bauble Boba and things are looking weird but great—but still weird—and I have no idea what’s going on. Is Wonder Pens on the brink of insolvency and we’re jumping ship for something better? I’m not sure if bubble tea is the place, but I’m along for the ride, and I’m part of the ride, and it’s wild.

Getting a business off the ground with kids is a totally different act than without. Jon has been driving this while I’ve been driving the kids around to their various activities, popping popcorn for them and their friends while they’re rampaging through the house with nerf guns, trying to convince Jon we need to hang lunar new year lanterns in the shop, ordering more jars of Aquaphor, more packs of socks, more cans of cat food.

And it is different, taking over from someone else who has already created this incredible business, set up systems, figured out solutions. It’s amazing that we’re getting so much knowledge and set up from Carol and her husband, Sam. There’s a lot to learn! They’ve built so much. We’re mixing lotions and potions of a different sort, and I’m trying not to consume it all while doing so.  

And I think all of this is also part of the ruminations on life. What are we doing? Why are we doing it? Is this a mid-life crisis? At what age are you officially mid-life? There are no answers, but maybe the answers aren’t always the point. For the longest time, and maybe even still ongoing, I’ve sort of thought that I’m a one-trick pony: I’m just someone who really likes stationery and writing with stationery and books and reflecting on how stationery and writing and reading and life can all go together. Also cats. And now, maybe, also bubble tea? It’s hard to learn new tricks, but at least we’ll have tasty drinks.

Or maybe this is just another fun project to do in life. Because life is really too short to exist without a few risks, trying new things, going on new adventures, and seeing what will turn up.