MANCHESTER, N.H. —

Once a niche Taiwanese treat, bubble tea has become widely popular.

The star of the drink is the tapioca boba pearls, made from cassava.

However, Consumer Reports recently found a hidden concern in the pearls: lead.

"Cassava's a root vegetable known to absorb lead and other heavy metals from soil. And because of that, we wanted to see how much lead and other heavy metals these drinks and pearls might contain," said Kevin Loria of Consumer Reports.

Consumer Reports tested pearls from two major chains, Gong Cha and Kung Fu Tea, as well as packaged boba from Trader Joe's and WuFuYuan. Every sample contained lead.

"While these levels weren't so high we'd tell people to completely avoid bubble tea, the fact that we detected lead in all four products is a good reason to

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