Recipe Bubble Milk Tea

You might have heard of Bubble Tea. It’s a very popular drink in Asia and is becoming more and more known in Western countries too. It’s sometimes called Boba or Pearl Tea, but it all means the same. The tea drink is served cold and is a very popular to-go drink in many Asian countries. On this page I’m telling you more about Bubble Tea and I’m sharing a recipe for Bubble Milk Tea that you can make at home. The bubble milk tea that I made is vegan. Scroll down for the recipe!

What is Bubble Tea made of?

If you’re looking at the picture of my bubble tea, you’ll see that there’s a layer of pearls on the bottom. These ‘pearls’ are typical for bubble tea. You might wonder what the bubbles are made of. They’re tapioca pearls (sometimes called tapioca balls). Tapioca is a starch extracted from the Cassava plant. You can create your own Tapioca balls from Tapioca starch (Tapioca Zetmeel in Dutch), but you can also buy Tapioca Balls.
You’ll have to cook the bowls for them to get soft and you can make the bubble tea in all kinds of different flavors. I made a milk tea with bubbles.

Ingredients (for 4 glasses):
1 liter (almond) milk
2 tablespoons loose black tea leaves (or 4 tea bags)
3 tablespoons (brown) sugar
4 tablespoons of Tapioca pearls
250 ml water
100 grams brown sugar
ice cubes

Add the milk, tea and sugar to a pan and warm up. Stir occasionally. Turn down the fire and let it rest for 20 minutes. Remove the tea leaves (or tea bags), transfer it to a bottle and store it in the fridge until cold.

Bring water to a boil. Add the tapioca pearls and boil for about 30 minutes on low fire. In the beginning you’ll have to stir continuously to avoid the pearls getting stuck to the bottom of the pan. When they start to float, you’ll only have to stir occasionally. Drain the pearls and rinse with cold water.

Add the water and brown sugar to a pan and bring to a boil. Add the tapioca pearls and turn down the fire to low. Let the pearls simmer for 20 minutes, until the liquid get syrupy.

Add the tapioca pearls to 4 glasses. Top with ice cubes and the milk tea.