DIY Boba / Bubble Tea
A lot of my friends love boba, otherwise known as bubble tea (depending where you're from). The drink originated from Taiwan, and is a combination of tea and chewy tapioca pearls ("bubbles"). It's popular around many of my friend's college campuses, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many things like classes are online and/or businesses have closed in the meantime.
"I miss bubble tea so much :("
"There's no good boba places near me"
"I wish I could afford boba more than once a week"
If you don't have access and/or the funds for boba, it's possible to make it yourself!! It's super easy and quick too.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup tapioca pearls
- 16 oz of desired tea (minimum amt)
- 1 tsp - 1/4 cup of desired sweetener*
- 5 cups water (per 1 cup of pearls)
* suggested sweeteners: sugar (white/granulated or brown); simple syrup; honey (regular/not raw); maple syrup
Instructions
- Fill a small or medium pot with 5 cups, or enough to fill the pot 2/3rds up (this can be eyeballed!)
- Let water come to boil at high heat
- Pour in the tapioca pearls
- Slowly stir until all the pearls float to the surface (~1-2 min), making sure that pearls don't stick together
- Lower the heat to medium and cover for ~ 2-3 minutes
- Taste one pearl to check for consistency, and leave for another ~ 2 minutes for a firmer consistency.
- Drain the pearls using a strainer and rinse with cold water. The pearls should still be warm
- For springier boba: fill a bowl with cold tap water and let the pearls rest for ~30 seconds
- For firmer boba: use cold water from the fridge instead of tap
-
Put the pearls in a bowl and cover it with the desired sweetener
Multiple sweeteners can be used at once, ie maple syrup + brown sugar - Gently stir and let sit for ~5 minutes
- Put desired amount of pearls into your cup of tea and enjoy!
Notes
You can buy tapioca pearls and instant milk tea online. We've found that Casa Milky Flavor Teas and 3:15PM to be the best for bubble tea. There are other good ones, but require 2+ packets per cup of boba, so it doesn't work out cost-wise.
- For Casa Milky Flavor Teas, we suggest Okinawa and Hokkaidou Sapporo.
- For 3:15PM, we suggest Original and Earl Gray.