Vancouverites have been getting acclimated to life in post-plastic straw world, as the city works to eliminate the single-use sipping tools from our consumer life.
While some restaurants and bars have turned to glass or metal straws, and others compostable materials, and more still just no straws whatsoever, there's one key segment of the Vancouver food scene that relies on straws to make the product work: Bubble tea.
Boba Straw/Kickstarter
A new Kickstarter campaign launched this week takes aim at addressing this straw-centric sector with their product the Boba Straw. (Boba is a term for bubble tea used outside of Vancouver, predominantly in California.)
Boba Straw is sized for use in bubble tea, where the cold beverage is often served with tapioca "pearls" and other jellies meant to be slurped up with the drink via a straw. Made of two materials, metal with a silicone tip, the Boba Straw is touted to recreate "the classic comfort of a plastic straw" where it meets your mouth, and the body is designed to be long-lasting.
The Boba Straws will be sold with an individual cleaning brush and a drawstring carrying pouch. They come in three colours (rose gold, black, gun metal). The timeline projected for the campaign has the Kickstarter phase ending in early November, production in December, and the first shipments sent out in January 2019.
As it stands, the City of Vancouver has set June 1, 2019 as the date the plastic straw ban goes into effect.
Right now, becoming a backer of the Boba Straw campaign for $15 gets you one straw, while $30 gets you three.
You can read more about the Boba Straw on Kickstarter.
