Bubble Tea @ Home

I’ve been doing a bit more cooking (and yes, learning new ways to prepare frozen 만두 [mandu] does count as cooking in my book).  However, I’ve been reluctant to post pictures of everything so as not to give the impression that this is a cooking blog.  Because that it ain’t.

But I tried making home-made bubble tea for the first time tonight, and wanted to encourage anyone out there who has been thinking about it to give it a try.  I like mine very simple — just peach tea, a tiny bit of sugar, and tapioca pearls.  And given my painfully sensitive teeth these days, very little ice.  No powders, no dairy, and preferably no caffeine.

So I was at the grocery store tonight, and I picked up a box of tapioca pearls.  I got the small kind hoping that they would fit through the regular straws that I already had, and they were white since I couldn’t find the black ones that you usually see.  (I think Asian grocery stores would have the black kind, and will definitely look for them on my next trip to the not-so-local K-grocer.)

When I got home, I made a pot of caffeine-free herbal peach tea.  I cooked the tapioca pearls for 25 minutes, and then let them sit in the hot water for 25 more.  I also made a simple syrup of brown sugar and water to sweeten it.   Mix all that together, add a little ice, and this is what I got:

Okay, so it looks a little weird because the pearls are white and not black.  They were a little soft, because I don’t think you need to cook the miniature ones for as long as the larger ones, but they tasted exactly the same.  And my entire box of tapioca cost $3.99 — the same price I pay for a single drink at the Lollicup that is a 30-minute drive away.

Anyway, just wanted to share!

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If you want to try this yourself, be sure and use plenty of water — recipes I saw on the internet suggested a minimum of 8 cups of water for every cup of tapioca pearls.  I used 4 cups of water and 1/2 cup of pearls, which seemed fine and gave me plenty of tapioca.  The next time I make it, I’ll make an even smaller batch and won’t let the pearls sit as long — maybe 15 minutes instead of 25.  And I read that if you cover the pearls with the simple syrup, they should last in the refrigerator for a few days.