跨國飲食中的國族建構：臺灣珍珠奶茶在越南的本真性邊界

The Construction of Food Nationalism: Bordering Authentic Taiwanese Bubble Tea in Vietnam

珍珠奶茶，或稱波霸奶茶，已經是一種來自臺灣、風行全球的茶飲料。珍珠奶茶在臺灣與全球日益增長的知名度與收益，促使其逐漸成為臺灣飲食文化的象徵之一。本文結合食物國族主義、邊界與移動的視角，從人民日常生活的茶葉生產消費中，重新理解臺灣珍珠奶茶在越南的市場開拓與本真性建構。我們從南北越茶區的景況，梳理在越南從事茶產業的臺商如何從過往以臺式烏龍茶為主要生產的路徑，走向以珍珠奶茶等飲料茶為主的經營轉向。接著我們以北越茶區的生產製程和河內的珍奶市場發展的行銷策略為窗口，探究臺灣的茶產業經營者如何鞏固臺灣珍奶在越南的臺灣本真性，理解這個臺灣本真性的劃界過程，如何弔詭地仰賴人事物去邊界化的移動而成。對於臺灣珍珠奶茶，甚至其他臺灣茶產品的跨國性，我們已經無法單就原料來源，以二元對立式的純粹「真」或「假」，來理解食物國族主義建構下的臺灣珍奶。如同我們文章揭示的，所謂珍珠奶茶道地或本真的臺灣性，有人著重以越南茶拼配少量的臺灣本地茶葉、有人側重臺灣製茶技術本身的掌控，有人把珍珠奶茶展店的味道調與服務等作為知識，從開教室傳播知識的本身，強化只有臺灣人「教」得出珍奶的臺灣本真性。這些臺灣珍奶從業者在越南生產消費的日常，讓我們從「真」或「假」的二元對立思維抽離，藉此我們才得以窺見那些劃界與跨界同時存在的力量，得以抽絲剝繭出跨國珍珠奶茶與食物國族主義背後，所謂臺灣茶與越南茶之間既相斥又相依的關係。

Bubble tea, or Boba tea, has been a more and more popular drink worldwide and an emerging international symbol of Taiwanese food culture. At the same time, it has also been a growing business not just in Taiwan but in other countries, where investors with different national backgrounds have made efforts to expand the bubble tea market. The expansion of the bubble tea market outside Taiwan, however, has worried the Taiwanese merchants of bubble tea. One of the major concerns has been the loss of 'authenticity' of bubble tea as a national food symbol of Taiwan. While more and more bubble tea shops seem to appeal to the authenticity of Taiwanese taste as a marketing and branding strategy, tea merchants and business investors from Taiwan have worried that Taiwanese people have in fact gradually lost the power to define and to authorise the authenticity of bubble tea. As a result, although overseas Taiwanese bubble tea merchants are positive about the international expansion of the bubble tea market, they have struggled over ways to claim and to retain bubble tea as an authentic food belonging to Taiwan. In accordance with these concerns, Taiwanese tea merchants, especially those running bubble tea businesses outside Taiwan, have taken every step of the processing know-how as defining criteria, by which Taiwanese people are able to draw a clear boundary to differentiate the authenticity ofTaiwan from others. Thus Taiwanese tea merchants have tried to export a whole 'package of authenticity,' including the raw material, processing machines, and customized services from Taiwan to the other countries. This paper takes the expanding bubble tea market in Vietnam as a case study to explore this scenario. Theoretically, we combine food nationalism, criteria of authenticity, and mobility as the framework to analyze people's everyday practices in producing and consuming bubble teas. Methodologically, we follow a group of Taiwanese bubble tea merchants in Vietnam to investigate the relationship between the mobility of processing techniques and the policing of authenticity in the emerging Taiwanese bubble tea market in Vietnam. From this case, we argue that the overseas expansion of the Taiwanese bubble tea market has faced a dilemma between boundary maintenance and de-bordering forces in running bubble tea businesses in Vietnam. This dilemma has then become a mechanism for reconstructing the culinary meaning of a national food icon, as seen in Taiwanese bubble tea in Vietnam.