China’s Bubble Tea Boom Creates a Half-Dozen Billionaires

Are you a fan of bubble tea? Love it or hate it, you probably know a millennial or Gen Zer who’s crazy about the cloyingly sweet drink filled with sticky balls of tapioca (the “bubbles,” or “boba”) that make it almost chewy as it slithers down your throat. That growing passion has created at least a half-dozen billionaires in China in the past few years and is at the heart of several other potential fortunes.

On April 23, Sichuan Baicha Baidao Industrial Co., China’s No. 3 bubble tea chain, is scheduled to start trading, aiming to raise more ...