A Nashville Farmers’ Market Must-Try: Bubble Love’s Boba Tea

With spring underway, the Nashville Farmers’ Market is a cherished weekend destination — a place where you can discover new vendors, shop local, and enjoy community. Anna Fields found all three of those when she set up shop in 2018, turning her makeshift boba tea operation into a full-fledged boba experience. Bubble Love was born.

Anna discovered her obsession with boba tea while teaching overseas in China, where it became her go-to for comfort. When she returned to the states, she began testing boba recipes until she perfected her own — which led her to the Nashville Farmers’ Market. “Being a community-oriented space, I felt at home there,” she says. From classic milk tea to exotic options like lychee or kumquat tea, Anna offers visitors a dose of the comfort she found so many years ago. Meet this week’s FACE of Nashville, Anna Fields!

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What was your upbringing like?

I was raised in Little Rock, AR, and I’m the middle sister of three girls. I had a sweet and simple childhood with lots of pets, wounded wild animals we nursed back to health, hikes, camping, and canoeing.

My dad still loves the outdoors; I suspect it was the best way to mentally survive working as a doctor all those years. He finds peace in a creek with a fishing pole in his hands. My mom was the entrepreneur of the family. She was always doing little start-ups and selling things to friends. We were usually with her at home, planning garage sales, growing vegetables in the garden, and selling them for pennies to the neighbors. I credit my love of business to her. Her dream was to open a Chick-fil-A way before it was popular, but we were in high school by then, and our social calendars took over her time. I owe so much to my parents for giving me a solid foundation and a mind for business.

Why bubble tea? Where did the obsession come from?

After college, I was determined to work overseas. I got a job as a teacher for an American family in Fujian, China, where I lived for nine years after the family moved back to the states. Their youngest son was my student, and as a reward for good grades, he was allowed to go into the city for bubble tea. I remember my first cup. I was so shocked something had come up my straw. It was love at first chew! I was quickly obsessed and tried shop after shop. Coffee was hard to find in our island city, so bubble tea became my comfort beverage. I could customize it to my mood thanks to the wide variety of flavors.

What inspired you to open your shop?

After my husband and I got married and started having babies, we moved back to the U.S. so he could pursue a career in special education. The move back to the American South was jarring for our little family of five — twin babies and a 2-year-old, a husband in grad school, and Nashville-sized rent on top of it all. I started nannying the neighbor’s children for income, and the tiny house quickly filled with tiny people.

Those days were rough but glorious. We were on food stamps and WIC, and my life became price comparing and trying to grow our own food. Besides the financial challenges, I lost so many cultural elements leaving China, and I was in a stage of grief that I wasn’t even aware of at the time. I even asked the shop owner of an Asian restaurant if he knew how to make bubble tea and would start selling it to me.

When the boba search came up short, I started ordering ingredients online and watching Chinese videos about making it at home. Something was missing in my recipe, and it drove me bonkers. I couldn’t recreate the milk tea from my walk to work in China, and I couldn’t figure out why. While polling a few friends still living overseas, I came across one friend who’d grown up in Taiwan, the origin place of bubble tea. With her advice, a trip to the store, and a few more hours of tweaking in my kitchen, our classic milk tea recipe was born.

It wasn’t until another year and another rental house later that my idea for my own shop took shape. My husband got a signing bonus after his first teaching semester at MNPS. We knew we didn’t want to be in debt ever again, and this bonus was a chance to get things started. We figured maybe there were other people in Nashville who would like bubble tea as much as we did.

I used part of the bonus for an introductory business class, and with the rest, I bought a folding table, my favorite brand of high-end boba, my favorite tea from the many trial pots I had brewed, and the biggest boba straws I could find. Dusting off graphic design skills from college, I created a logo with the shop’s name, “Bubble Love” or “珍珠爱” (which translates to ‘bubble love’). Born out of the missing I felt, and in honor of the ‘family’ I had found during my time in China, I wanted to incorporate Chinese characters where I could.

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What led to your inclusive team?

After college, I worked in a few spaces alongside people with disabilities. I have been so inspired by the grit and determination I see in their lives. The joys I’ve experienced working with people who are differently abled are some of the greatest and most memorable times of my life. As a result, I am a different person — a kinder, more compassionate person — and hiring people with disabilities was always part of the dream.

Witnessing the indignity some people have endured because they are not neurotypical or have mobility challenges, I wanted to create a job they could be proud to do. My neurodiverse employees have expressed their desire to take orders and be the face of the business in contrast to many positions for people with disabilities who work in the back or clean tables. Their bright spark brings a vibrance to our team at the shop. Having them with us gives our team a greater sense of purpose, and our customers can feel that.

Peach joined our team in 2019 and has been running the register on Sunday evenings ever since. We tried a weekend or two with her in the back making drinks, but her special skill is really speaking with customers and helping them decide on flavors and toppings. When Peach brought McKenzie to the team, I was so excited to have a bobarista that uses an augmentative communication device.

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What’s the best advice you’ve ever received, and who gave it to you?

“Invest at least some of your time in something that doesn’t get destroyed at the end of the day. Beds get unmade, food gets eaten, clothes get dirty, but every human needs a hobby that will last.” — A watercolor teacher I met in an art shop.

What are three things you can’t live without?

Pets: My whole life has been filled with animals and living creatures around me. Dogs in my childhood were like brothers; our first dog as a married couple was like our first child. I will always have a pet in my home, and I highly recommend adopting a rescued pet.

Asian Food: I’m very emotional about food and beverages. I want a meal to transport me to another land or remind me of a time gone by. I suppose I’m trying to relive the glory of my younger traveling years. Thankfully, Nashville is a great place to find food from around the world.

Tea: I didn’t start drinking tea until college. My roommate, who’d just returned from Ireland, brought the most fragrant tea (Nambarrie) back with her. Something about the ritual of making it and sipping slowly together over shortbread cookies made a deep impression on me.

While I lived in China, a nice Irish cup of tea and milk with a shortbread cookie was comfort food. If I start to feel a cold coming on, I’ll keep a thermos of Tie Guan Yin Oolong with me throughout the day. If the sun is threatening to fry us all, nothing can compare to the refreshing sips of a kumquat fruit tea with popping lychee boba. There is a transformation that happens when you steep and sip a cup of leaves in hot water. It’s laced with ancient meaning and tradition, reaching through time and inviting one to slow down and hydrate.

All photography courtesy of Jamie Pratt.

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Nashville is filled with dynamic women. Meet more of them in our FACES archives!