Boba Tea (珍珠奶茶) | Easy Chinese Recipes (2024)

What is boba tea?

Boba tea is also known as Bubble tea, or Zhen milk for short, is a tea beverage that has spread in Taiwan. After adding powder balls to milk tea, it becomes boba tea.

Boba tea is one of Taiwan’s “bubble black tea” culture. Although tapioca balls are added to milk tea, it has become one of Taiwan’s most representative beverages and snacks.

Boba tea is an interesting drink, usually composed of black or oolong tea, milk or fruit flavors, sweeteners and the chewy texture found in Taiwanese cuisine, called QQ (you might think of the ‘bubbles’ in pearl milk tea). In most cases, QQ takes the form of tapioca pearls.

The name “Pearl Milk Tea” originally comes from the bubbles formed when the milk tea is shaken, rather than the interesting pearls in the drink. This drink is known by many other names, including “Pearl Tea”, “Boba Tea” and “Tapioca Tea”.

There is nothing thatcan’t be solvedby a cup of boba tea. If so, then two cups.

A cup of hot boba tea in winter, the sweetness of boba tea and the Q bombs of big pearls, a drink full of happiness.

Boba Tea Recipe

Ingredients:

How to make boba tea?

1. Put water and brown sugar cubes in the pot, cook on medium-low heat until the brown sugar melts and the water boils to make small bubbles.
⚠️It must be boiled. If the water temperature is not enough, it will form a non-Newtonian fluid, which will never form a ball, so it will be fun.

2. Pour in the tapioca starch and turn off the heat, stir with a spatula to form a flocculent powder without dry powder. Knead the dough after it is not hot.

If the dough is too dry, add boiling water to it, add less, 5-10 grams at a time.
If the dough is too wet, add some tapioca starch.

3. Finally knead it into a dough like plasticine. It is soft and slightly crooked, and has strong plasticity. There is no big jaggedness when pressed by fingers.

4. Move to the chopping board and rub them into long strips. Cut a few pieces on average and then rub them separately.
Sprinkle some tapioca starch to prevent sticking, and cut them side by side into small pieces of the same size.

Sprinkle some tapioca starch on the baking tray to prevent sticking. Throw the cut pearls into the baking dish and roll around to prevent sticking.

Cut the bigger ones to make the boba, and cut the smaller ones to make the pearls. I cut the big boba, about 2-3 grams each.

5. After cutting, take it to the living room while watching TV series, and rub it. Bring the family members or children to help rubbing together, parent-child DIY, simple and fun. After rubbing all the pieces, rub the whole piece like this to make it rounder.

6. Make all the pearls, sift off the excess floating powder, and cook in the pot. Cook as much as you eat. The rest can be sealed and frozen for more than 1 month, and you can eat and cook as you go, without thawing, which is very convenient.

After laying and freezing the shape first, then pack it into boxes or bags and freeze it to prevent the pearls from being compressed and deformed.

7. Next, start to boil the pearl in a pot with more water. (Outside the recipe)

8. After the water is boiled, add the pearls and stir a few times to prevent adhesion. Boil again until the pearl floats and cook for a while.

The pearls are of different sizes, and the speed of cooking is different. Cook for about 10 minutes. Take one and taste. If you bite it, there is no hard core in the middle and it will be cooked.When cooked, turn off the heat and simmer for 5-10 minutes.

9. After simmering, remove the pearls, and immediately pass over the ice water, and the pearls will be more qualitative. (Water outside the formula)

Don’t ask me why the pearls are not round, because they are not freshly boiled, they are piled up and squashed when they are frozen, causing…

10. Next, boil the syrup for hanging on the wall. The soul of the dirty milk tea can continue to use the water just boiled the pearls. Pour out most of it, leaving about 200 grams.

Add the brown sugar to melt, boil until the water boils with dense small bubbles, stir it from time to time, continue to cook until large bubbles appear, stir and become slightly viscous, and the syrup is ready.

Add the freshly cooked pearls, stir evenly to coat the pearls with syrup, cook for 1-2 minutes, turn off the heat, cover and simmer for a while, the pearls will be more delicious.

11. All the pearls are crystal clear and can reflect light as a mirror. They are already very sweet, so I will steal a few of them first.

12. When the pearls are simmering, they just come to make milk tea. I use Pu’er tea zhen, pour 5 sticks of tea zhen in the pot, add water to boil, then open the fire to boil until the water boils. (If you use tea leaves, put about 30-50 grams of tea leaves.)

Turn off the heat, cover and simmer for 5 minutes, the tea flavor will be more aromatic and sweet.

13. After simmering, open the lid and add milk, whipped cream, condensed milk and sugar. The sugar can be adjusted according to the taste. If you like to eat and put more, if you don’t like less, stir it evenly and then turn on the fire again. Bring to a boil.

14. Milk is easy to boil, so don’t walk away while staring at it. After boiling, turn off the heat, sieve it again, remove the milk crust and foam, and the milk tea is ready.

15. The pearls just now are simmered, and the syrup will thicken after opening the lid to cool down and start to assemble. Add a few spoonfuls of pearls to the glass, add more to taste, and then add a spoonful of syrup.

Tilt the cup to let the syrup flow naturally and hang on the wall of the cup.
Scoop another two spoonfuls of syrup from the mouth of the cup and flow down the wall of the cup.Create a dirty effect.

16. Pour the milk tea, the net celebrity dirty milk tea is complete It’s not too happy to come to such a big cup of hot milk tea in the cold winter, as well as big boba pearls.

17. There is nothing that cannot be solved by a cup of milk tea. If there is, then two cups.

18. A cup of milk tea, happy take off pearls dig and eat with a spoon🥄, give you a spoon

19. Put it into a heat-resistant nozzle bag, and give it to the children one person and one bag to go shopping and share it with your girlfriends and take it to the company to drink.
The caliber of my bag is too small, and the pearls are too big to pour in.

20. If you don’t want to make dirty milk tea, you don’t need to boil the syrup, just boil the pearls in clean water, boil the milk tea, and pour it together.

Like milk tea with dark color, add brown sugar when making milk tea, and add white sugar if you like light color.

21. Classmates who opened the shop, let’s sell milk tea in winter

Notes

Other milk tea simple recipe

Osmanthus Milk Tea

Ingredients: 1 bag of black tea, 1 teaspoon of osmanthus, 100 ml of milk, rock sugar, appropriate amount of water.
Recipe:
1.Put the sweet-scented osmanthus and black tea bags in the pot and rinse them with hot water.
2.Add rock sugar and milk, and mix well.
The fragrance of this milk tea is overflowing, and I am already drunk before drinking it.Besides, the sweet-scented osmanthus also has the effects of relieving cough, resolving phlegm, and beautifying the skin.

Small pearl milk tea

Ingredients: black tea special for milk tea; creamer powder; fructose; boiled small pearls; ice cubes

Recipe:

1. Put the boiled small pearls into the finished cup for later use.
2. Add creamer powder and milk tea special base black tea to the Xueke cup and stir to melt it with a stirring rod.
3. Add ice cubes to the Snowg cup of Practice 2 until the cup is full.
4. Add fructose to the Practice 3 Snowg cup, cover and shake well.
5. Pour the shaken milk tea into the finished cup filled with pearls.

Different flavors of ingredients

In Taiwan, bubble milk tea is quite autonomous, and bubble milk tea shops are usually operated in a complex manner, not only providing black tea, green tea, milk tea, coffee and other beverages, but also a variety of “special specialties” that can represent the characteristics of each store. Make drinks”, and some regular customers will also create their own exclusive flavors.

Flavored tea: plum (sour plum): plum oolong tea, plum black tea, plum green tea, etc. Yakult: Yakult black tea, Yakult green tea, etc.

Bartending materials (such as mint syrup, pomegranate syrup, etc.): Mint green tea, pomegranate black tea, etc.

Various types of scented tea: Can be sold separately or added to milk tea, such as lavender milk tea.

Added materials: Pearls: pink rounds, divided into large (boba) and small ones. Dragon Ball: also known as “heart-wrapped powder circle”, add a whole red bean to the core of the pearl, with a diameter of more than 10mm, with a “soft and crispy outside” taste.

Coconut fruit: Such as coconut black tea, coconut green tea, coconut milk tea, etc.

Idea: Small cube-shaped coffee jelly that can be Q.

Pudding: Some of them use commercially available (or homemade) solid pudding, and some stores use pudding powder as a seasoning. Milk tea is most commonly added to pudding.

Xiancao (called jelly by Cantonese): Some stores that originally sold burned Xiancao in the winter, transformed their products in the summer, and were later followed up by most stores.

Aiyu: It is a bit similar to Xiancao. In the early days, it appeared in traditional markets in the countryside. Later, the transformation also brought changes in the taste of beverages, which are more common in some non-chain stores.

Konjac: A healthy food that was very popular in the past few days, then because of the market’s pursuit of health, it has been widely used in various beverages, most of which have a chewy taste.

Additional options:

Sweetness: basically fructose, the basic sweetness of each store is slightly different, and related to the production staff, unless otherwise specified is the basic sweetness.

Whole sugar / 10% sugar: The amount of fructose varies according to the standards of each store, so put the standard amount.

Half sugar: The amount of fructose is only half of the store’s standard.

Less sugar / micro sugar / three-part sugar: The amount of fructose is less than half of the store’s standard, mostly three-part sugar (clear heart) or two-part sugar (micro sugar).

Sugar-free: No sweetness is added, and some customers who are worried about pearl calories or just want to drink the sweetness of pearls will choose sugar-free.

Twelve percent sugar: The amount of fructose is higher than the standard. Because some stores use large amounts of ice cubes, some customers are worried that they will not be sweet after a long time, so they will ask the store to add more sugar. This is a more colloquial view. It is equivalent to asking the store to add a little more sugar, which is one of the expert ordering methods.

Ice volume: Pearl milk tea is mostly cold drinks, so ice cubes are added, but if there are too many ice cubes, the taste of the drink will become weaker over time. Therefore, some stores will deliberately make the milk tea sweeter and melt the ice cubes. It still retains its sweetness afterwards. However, because ice cubes take up the volume of the cup, and most store milk teas are pre-foamed and iced in the refrigerator, some budget-conscious people will ask for ice to get more drinks. There are also many health-conscious or female friends who also choose to go ice during certain periods.

Full ice: The amount of ice cubes varies according to the standards of each store, and the standard amount is put in. Generally, if the amount of ice is not specifically requested by the store to reduce the amount, almost all ice is used. (More than half of the cup is filled with ice cubes. It is very cold to drink in winter, and it is easy to cause the drink to be sweet and then weak.)

Less ice: The amount of ice cubes is only half according to the standards of each store. However, depending on the store’s habits, the standard may not be set at half. Most customers will choose less ice to avoid the sweet and weak drinks. This is also a connoisseur’s approach one.

Shao Shao ice: also known as micro ice, ice cubes are placed on only one to three layers floating on the upper layer of the cup. Most of them are one of the ways that customers who will finish the drink in a short time will require.

De-icing: Put only some ice cubes, so that the beverage will only have a cold feeling after the seasoning is completed, and the ice cubes will not be visible; some stores’ beverages are already cold, so they don’t put any ice cubes.

Thicken: Do not dilute with water.

Boba Tea Origin

There was only one name in the early days. Around 1988, a hawker called “Grasshopper” on Haian Road in Tainan City, inspired by the actress at the time, Ye Zimei, renamed bubble milk tea to Boba milk tea. Later, in southern Taiwan, the saying that “Bobba” refers to the big pink circle and “Pearl” refers to the small pink circle gradually came into being. As chain stores in southern Taiwan moved to exhibition stores in northern Taiwan, this classification has gradually been accepted by Taiwanese residents.

Outside of Taiwan, are also commonBoba“BOBA” or “Bubble” this term.The reason is that the new immigrants of Chinese descent who came to North America in the late 1980s still used “Bobba Milk Tea” as their call. Therefore, tea shops such as “BOBA Tea House”, “BOBA Planet” and “BOBA World” have sprung up in various parts of California. They are currently non-Chinese. Residents are still full of “BOBA” or “Bubble”.They will say it in English to counter the waiter: “Give me latte, and add some BOBA in, please.” (Give me a cup oflattecoffee, add a little “big breasts”), “big breasts” has also become a pink circle synonymous.

Pearl milk tea generally uses large-grain powder balls, and the diameter after cooking is about 7 mm or more. Otherwise, if the diameter is too small, it will be easy to fill the mouth with pearls, and it is not convenient to swallow and chew.However, most of the bubble milk tea merchants still provide small powder round pearls.Of course, there is also a kind of “amber pearl” which is made of 100% brown sugar.