Abstract
Flourishing since 1980's, Bubble Tea in Taiwan start as an insignificant street beverage, now is not only a part of our daily life, but also a billion-dollar industry, marching to the global market. This thesis tells a story about how Taiwan built up the empire of bubble tea industry, and the policy implication for industrial innovation and upgrading. With the perspective of technological change, and the historical context of Taiwan's Tea industry and tea-drinking culture, this case study will examine the complex relationship between technology, industry, society, and the link between service industry and local manufacturing's technical support. This research identifies three basic technical paradigm in the history of bubble tea industry, and from the process of technological change, we can see the mutual shaping of technology and society. It started from the Chun Shui Tang Teahouse, the tacit knowledge of "knowing tea" is the foundation of bubble tea. And then there are two derivative paradigms: "made in advance" and "made on site". "Made in advance" provided a "deskilling black box" that lowering the threshold of business, and drove the market to grow. "Made on site" higher the quality of tea by "reskilling standardization". Innovation took part in every industrial segments in bubble tea industry which form a technological support network. Different actors creating their own niche by bringing in their technical resources, to further enrich the network itself. This cross-segment dynamic process made the innovation possible, and also create the unique technical characteristics in Taiwan.