About This Podcast

Boba Battles is a podcast dedicated to instructing you where to get the best boba fix. In this 12-minute masterpiece, Daniela Shapiro and Izzy Ge will teach you about the history of bubble tea, its cultural influence, and how you can order the best one. Full of puns, jokes, and guest stars, Boba Battles features the most prominent drinks and shops in the San Francisco Bay Area. So what are you waiting for? Join the par-tea and get sipping alongside us!

About The Podcasters

Izzy and Daniela are two very different high school students. Izzy enjoys coding and discussing physics concepts Daniela doesn’t understand, while Daniela appreciates literature and geeking out about history (and art I guess). Izzy is lactose intolerant, while Daniela’s (second) favorite boba topping is house creama. Izzy loves instrumental music, and Daniela gets frustrated if they don’t start singing right away. However, these two friends are united by one common interest: Boba. Ever since the start of middle school, Daniela and Izzy would bike miles through busy roads to visit their town’s mediocre boba shop. Now (in conflict with their bank account), they make their way in too long of journeys throughout the Bay Area in search for a drink that justifies the $6.50 price tag. On a typical weekend, you can find Izzy and Daniela lounging in a local park, sipping black milk tea, and arguing over the meaning of life!

Why did we make a podcast?

Well, why not! Izzy and I have a slight superiority complex in that we believe our conversations are more profound/interesting than the majority of 17-year olds, so we’ve been talking about making a podcast in which we discuss current issues for a very, very, long time. However, in fear of getting “canceled,” we decided to stick with a more lighthearted topic. The idea came to us on a typical Saturday afternoon. While we were getting our usual Teaspoon fix, we found ourselves talking in precise detail about that day’s tapioca selection (were the balls too soft? Chewy? Bouncy? Did they absorb the right amount of brown sugar syrup?), and then, it was like a light bulb moment. So, we decided our wisdom needed to be shared with the rest of the world (not our political wisdom though. We’ll save that for another day.) 

While Izzy and I are both avid podcast listeners, the only podcast selection we had in common was Philosophize This, and although Plato’s Allegory of the Cave doesn’t exactly have much common ground with matcha lattes, we were still influenced by the podcasts’ incredible narration style and sound effects. 

What we learned

This project was not only an excuse to splurge on boba tea for educational purposes- it was a true learning experience in which we became more aware and connected with the products we consume every day. Our main struggle for this podcast was getting connected with the boba shops directly (aka many disregarded emails), but we were able to deliver a well-versed story on our own. My advice to people looking to start a podcast would be to just go for it. It will by no means be perfect the first time, but it can only go up from here!