I’m a proud participant of Bubble Tea Paint Ball ™. You can rocket a tapioca ball really far with those straws.
Where I was in Brazil (in the northeast) a popular street food was a sort of pancake made of tapioca. You could get it with cheese or meat inside.
I recall it being rather gummy and I wanted a bit more flavour than what the cheese one had to offer. But I could see it growing on me (as bubble tea “bubbles” have), even though I have no interest in the gummy pudding style.
Tapioca is a boon to people with restricted diet - I’ve made fairly decent gluten-free baked goods (including bread) from a blend of flours, including tapioca flour - it has some of the mechanical properties of gluten - trapping gas bubbles from the leavening agent and also helping to keep the end product moist and not too crumbly.
I don’t require a gluten free diet myself, but I used to work with someone who does - I made pizzas for a potluck lunch one time and nobody believed me that they were gluten-free.