*Please disregard my previous proposal. This one includes a sub-theme. In the current scenario of food and drink market, countries have often received and spread foreign cuisine and culture surrounded by exotic elements, making it clear for the habitual addressee that these objects are different than what he is used to. Perhaps as a strategy, even if some of these products slowly become part of the hosting country’s culture, this has never been the case with the bubble tea. The ice cold drink known as bubble tea consists of a product originating in Taiwan in the 1980’s which has rapidly expanded worldwide, first in China and subsequently in the West. Being one of the best-known Taiwanese culinary products, it has several franchise networks, more than 100 stores in the United States and around the same amount in Brazil. However, its form of presentation in the places where it has expanded, both in stores and in the product itself, does not show any element that can link it at first sight to its original culture, to the usual addressee, bringing elements that are commonly seen in North American products and stores. Being representative of an emerging nowadays culture which has reached an increasingly expressive public in the West, and mainly as a typical consumer good, bubble tea reflects an expansion of Taiwanese culture that characterizes the culture and ways of life of the place of origin, allowing an approximation between these factors and the addressee, especially the western one. From this perspective, we deal in this paper with the bubble tea and its esthesic effects, stimulated by the drink and the context in which it is acquired and consumed, as well as with how its worldwide expansion works from an esthesic point of view. We have set as objective to analyze some of the products offered and the places of consumption, and also the interaction produced on what concerns the addressee. We work with Greimas’ discursive semiotics as theoretical approach, mainly addressing the semiotic concept of manipulation. We also work with plastics semiotics as per J-M. Floch and A. C. de Oliveira, and with works that deal with the concept of taste. Preliminary results indicate that the manipulation regime is used to obtain the addressee’s approval by appealing to esthesia of other senses beyond palate, and to ludic elements. Specific Sub-theme: Esthesia and taste/ Estesia e gosto