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Comment by sho_hn | Hacker News Reader

I've had this conversation and the way I explained it is that our grapes are closer to the boba in bubble tea. It's not quite right (they don't pop quite as much) and boba isn't Japanese, but it gets the point across.

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Whose grapes are you likening to boba? I’m struggling with the comparison - even a loose one.

Is there a grape variety I’m entirely ignorant of?

Like my parent said, the grapes in East Asia are thick-skinned, and people either peel them or suck out their flesh. The ones sold in Europe are very thin-skinned, and peeling is largely impractical. I'm relating the latter to boba.

big purple concord grapes grow wild in the US and are thick skinned and you squeeze or suck out the grape inside, skin significantly more tart than the sweet grape, pretty sure those are the tannins that you get in wine from skin contact even those those are different grape varieties.

I've visited a number of European winegrower family farms and they frequently also grow table grapes for their own consumption. The table grapes they eat are much much less sweet than vinifera grapes where the yeast consume all the sugar into alcohol and which are basically too sweet to enjoy.

I split my time between Europe and China so I'm aware of the differences in that regard. My question was specifically regarding the comparison between European grapes and boba because I was struggling to identify any shared attributes from the varieties I have experienced. Is there a variety of grape which is more chewy in texture, perhaps?

I'm unclear why such a simple question appeared to offend at least one person.

That comment makes more sense if you read it as referring to popping boba [0] rather than the "normal" chewy tapioca boba. Grapes don't pop but the feel of the skin is similar enough.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popping_boba

Yep, that's what I meant!

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