Bubble Tea, Pearl Tea, Boba Tea … whatever name its going by, hopefully you’ve come across this drink at least once in your life already. They were a bit of a fad when I was in college, but like so many things, I didn’t really experience Bubble Tea until I moved to Singapore. At which point, I probably drank more of them than I should have in a single lifetime (they’re packed with sugar and rumor has it they have as many carbs as a bowl of rice).
Bubble Tea is any variety of iced tea with a bunch of wonderfully chewy tapioca pearls piled in the bottom. The most popular variety is “pearl milk tea” which is a basic tea with tons of milk and sugar syrup. Most often the pearls are are large (about a cm in diameter) and you have to drink the tea with a special fat straw so that you get plenty of pearls in every gulp. I’ve had it with tiny pearls (about half the size of normal ones) as well, and they’re fun too- especially when you still use the same fat straw.
Since there are so many varieties of this drink, I’m going to focus on how to make the pearls. To get you started on a basic ice milk tea: make a pot of lemon tea and let it cool, add sugar syrup (like corn syrup) as desired by the spoonful and top with milk (full, skim, half & half, full cream …). Everyone has their own favorite ratio (I actually knew of a restaurant in Singapore that let you specify this when you ordered), so you’ll have to play around to determine your own.
Finding the pearls (and the fat straws) is probably the most difficult part of this recipe. Basically, you need to find an Asian/Chinese market. They’ll come in bags, usually be either white or brown-ish colored and will be generally smaller than the finished/cooked size.
[Prep: — / Cook: 40min]
Ingredients– 1 cup tapioca pearls
– 10 cups of water
– about 1/4 cup of sugar syrup
– ice
– prepared tea of choice
- Bring water to a boil in a large pot.
- Let the pearls boil, covered, for about 15-20min. The pearls will float and if you’re using the white ones, become near completely translucent when cooked through.
- Remove from heat, stir, replace lid and let sit for another 15-20min.
- Drain remaining water and rinse the pearls.
- Pour sugar syrup on top and stir to coat.
- Put pearls at the bottom of a glass, top with ice and tea of choice.
- Ready to drink!
[Serves 2-4 teas]
Notes
- I’ve seen several recommendations on water-to-pearl ratios and all that I’ve tried weren’t enough water for my pearls. Thus, my suggested ratio is 10::1 (water::pearls), but the typical recommendation is 6 or 7 to 1.
- Pearls can be frozen and re-boiled as needed
- The pearls will soak up flavors after they’re cooked. It’s popular to make fun drinks with colored pearls by soaking them in various colorants in the refrigerator overnight.
There are more variations than I can count, but here’s a start:
- Teas: black, green and oolong are very popular both with and without milk
- Slushes: frozen, blended fruit juices are also very popular– just whatever you do, don’t make a Durian one
- coffees, flavored teas and non-frozen fruit juice can also be done
- the Oreo crush: my personal favorite guilty pleasure is ice, a touch of coffee, milk, sugar syrup and a couple of oreos blended together