Britain | Students and retail

What the rise of bubble tea says about British high streets

A sugar rush from foreign students

Bubble tea shop.
An economic indicatorPhotograph: Alamy
|MIDDLESBROUGH

Qun and richard ferreira opened a bubble-tea shop in Middlesbrough, in north-east England, in 2022. “To my knowledge, it was the first one in Teesside,” says Mr Ferreira. Since then at least five other bubble-tea outfits have opened in the Tees valley, with mixed success. But the Ferreiras nabbed the best site: round the corner from Teesside University, on Linthorpe Road.

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