How Fake News killed Bubble Tea in Germany

Here in Taiwan, bubble tea has basically become part of my daily diet. It was here where bubble tea was invented and started its successful journey around the world.

I remember trying my first bubble tea. I was a teenager at the time and one weekend I visited the city of Freiburg in Germany. Just as many other hip student cities in Germany at the time, Freiburg had plenty of bubble tea stores springing up. In fact, bubble tea became so popular so quickly that even McDonalds started offering it. But soon after that, bubble tea vanished from Germany - what had happened?

In August 2012, the German newspaper Rheinische Post published a report claiming that scientists of the German university RWTH Aachen had discovered carcinogenic substances in the tapioca pearls of bubble tea. "Bubble tea contains all sorts of crap", one scientist was cited. Since August traditionally is a time where everyone is on vacation and newspapers lack important stories to report, other newspapers jumped on the story and soon everyone in Germany knew: Bubble tea is poison!

One year later, the scientists who had presumably said that bubble tea contained "all kinds of crap" set the story right: They were testing new laboratory equipment and this was when they found tiny traces of carcinogenic substances in the bubble tea tested, but probably not in any amount that would pose any danger. Until today, neither the amount of carcinogenic substances detected back then nor any scientific report has been published that would lead to any conclusion that bubble tea could cause cancer, further more, any subsequent studies found no proof that tapioca pearls contain any amount of carcinogenic substances - but the harm has already been done: The revenue of Germany's newly opened bubble tea stores dropped by more than 80 Percent; Subsequently, almost all stores were forced to close permanently.

I was shocked to find out that it was fake news that killed bubble tea in Germany, I would love to keep having my new favourite drink when I get back to Germany, but I think this case illustrates the devastating effect that media can have and the sense of responsibility that media should have but often lack quite well. What do you think?

Main information source: https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/2013-05/bubble-tea-boboq-tapioka-perlen

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