Bubble tea: what it is and how to prepare it

The phenomenon of bubble tea

In recent years in Italy we have witnessed the boom of a curious drink with bright colors and dark spheres in suspension, served in large glasses with huge straws: this is bubble tea, a phenomenon that has reached Europe and our country from Taiwan, enjoying great success especially among the very young.

In big cities like Rome and Milan, many bubble tea outlets have sprung up with kilometer-long queues, offering assorted menus with endless combinations of ingredients and flavors.Children, teens but also adults have come to love this sweet and colorful drink that comes from afar and which we now tell you about.

Bubble tea: what is it

What is bubble tea, also called boba tea or pearl tea? We can define it as a sweet drink made from tea, milk, sugar and tapioca balls. Its great versatility allows different teas and different types of milk to be used, with the addition often of colorful syrups with the most distinctive flavors, giving rise to a universe of possibilities and flavors: from the most classic black tea bubble tea, green tea or flavored tea, to fruit flavors such as strawberry and mango, to more unusual flavors such as cappuccino, salted caramel and even lavender and mint.

But why is it called bubble tea? The word “bubble,” in itself, means “bubble”: in fact, bubble tea draws its origins from shaken iced tea, popular in Taiwan as early as the years following the end of World War II. The act of shaking tea in a shaker and then serving it over ice generated a kind of foam on the surface, similar to that of Moroccan tea poured from above, enriching the tea with many bubbles. Today, however, the word “bubble” refers to something else: in fact, the signature ingredient of bubble tea are tapioca balls, called fen yuan, which exist in 2 variations: white-transparent and small in size, or black (the dark color is given by the brown sugar) and large in size. We can consider the latter the “classics,” used by most stores that sell bubble tea.

Their consistency is somewhere between chewy and gelatinous, and together with the tea and milk that make up bubble tea they create a kind of “eat and drink,” more a snack than a simple drink. Just think that specific straws have been created, with a much larger diameter than the standard straws with which we drink soft drinks: this allows the tapioca balls to pass through and be chewed or made to “explode” on the palate, releasing their sugary component in case they have been soaked in sugar syrup or other fruit syrups (so-called “popping boba“).

Fun fact: The origin of the word “boba” is to be found in Taiwanese slang for …a prosperous female breast! The term is a playful reference to the spherical shape of dark tapioca balls, larger than the transparent fen yuan originally used to make bubble tea. In fact, it seems that a street vendor in Tainan started advertising his bubble tea with large dark beads by exploiting the nickname of actress Amy Yip, at that time a veritable sex symbol of Hong Kong cinema whose nickname “Boba” could be translated as “breast champion.” Well, we can say that peddler was right: fully successful marketing operation.

Bubble tea: how it comes about

Definitely a colorful and fun drink, affordable for everyone and capable of satisfying many tastes, which has invaded the Italian market in recent years: but how, when and where was bubble tea born?

A variant of the popular milk tea that is all the rage in so many Southeast Asian countries, bubble tea is a much less recent phenomenon than we think: just because we saw it arrive in Italy and Europe a few years ago does not mean it did not exist before. In fact, bubble tea has enjoyed excellent popularity for decades: it was invented in Taiwan in the 1980s, a period of great economic growth for the country when food and drink became synonymous with pleasure and the enjoyment of life. One product of the “leisure trend” of that period was indeed bubble tea.There are many debates about who was the first inventor of this drink, but there are two most credited stories.

Tu Tsong He, founder of Hanlin Tea Room, wandering around a market in Tainan one day saw a stall selling fen yuan. It was 1986. Attracted by this traditional snack that reminded him of his childhood, he thought of adding some to his green tea and noticed that those wonderful translucent beads, as they soaked in the tea, became tinged with a golden color: “…like the beads on my mom’s necklace.” The taste was great. Tu Tsong He then tried replacing them with the larger black tapioca balls and adding milk, introducing the beverage to the menu of his newly opened tea room: needless to say, bubble tea became the club’s flagship product, in high demand and loved by young and old alike.

Some say instead that the author of the first bubble tea in history is a woman, Lin Hsiu Hui, product manager of a thriving tea room in Taichung, Taiwan, called Chun Shui Tang. The place was already famous for selling excellent iced teas, an idea the founder had gotten from seeing iced coffee being served during one of his trips to Japan. Lin Hsiu Hui in 1988 absentmindedly added fen yuan to the iced black tea he was drinking during a staff meeting.Intrigued, the meeting attendees wanted to taste Lin’s experiment and liked it so much that the product was launched and immediately became more in demand than all the other iced teas offered by the tea room.

Ingredients of bubble tea

So what basic ingredients does bubble tea contain?

• Tea – Tea, as the name suggests, forms the basis of bubble tea. Flavored teas such as jasmine, rose or peach, intensely flavored black/red teas and oolong teas are great, but green teas are also fine if you want to try a milder version, perhaps balancing the amount of the other ingredients. And why not try it with a good matcha tea?
  
• Tapioca balls or pearls – This is an ingredient that is readily available commercially today. These small beads are made from tapioca, that is, cassava flour, a tuber native to South America, and must be cooked in water (we’ll see how in a moment) to give them the chewy, “chewy” texture that makes them an essential ingredient in bubble tea. By themselves, they have no definite taste, but they get more flavor depending on the ingredient in which they are dipped. As we saw earlier, they can be smaller and translucent-white, or black and larger in size-the dark color of the latter comes from the addition of brown sugar during preparation.
  
• Milk – It can be whole cow’s milk or vegetable milk (soy, coconut, almond): it is best to choose a milk with a good fat component, or at least with a consistency that is not too liquid, to give creaminess to our bubble tea. There are particularly mouthwatering (and equally caloric) versions that substitute condensed milk for whole milk or add cream.
  
• Sweetener – Choice of white sugar, brown sugar, honey or agave syrup

How to make bubble tea at home: the recipe

As you have seen, the basic ingredients for making a good bubble tea yourself are few and easy to find. Making bubble tea at home is fun, as well as quick and easy.You will also have the option of choosing a version that is lighter in sugar and vegan if you choose to use a vegetable milk instead of cow’s milk. Let’s see together how to make bubble tea at home in a few simple steps.

For this bubble tea recipe you can safely use the quick-cooking black tapioca pearls that are easily found in the market, but if you want to make them yourself at home, here’s how to do it.

Recipe for homemade tapioca pearls (x2 bubble tea)

Ingredients:

• 30gr tapioca starch
• 20gr brown sugar
• 25ml lukewarm water

Procedure:

• Place brown sugar in a saucepan and add warm water, stirring well
• Add a tablespoon of tapioca starch and stir until the mixture is as smooth and homogeneous as possible
• Heat over medium-low heat and stir until the mixture begins to thicken
• At this point remove it from the heat, put it in another pot and add the remaining tapioca starch
• Mix well until you have a dough that is workable by hand and transfer it to a table or cutting board
• Dust it again with starch to keep it from sticking and first divide it into strips (like small earthworms): from there again divide each “earthworm” into 4-5mm pieces on the side and form small balls
• Your pearls are ready to bake!

Now that the tapioca pearls are ready, you can use them to make a great bubble tea. Here is the recipe!

Bubble tea recipe – Classic version

Calories per person: 150-175 kcal

Ingredients x2 people:

• 30gr tapioca pearls
• 500ml water (for cooking the pearls)
• 7-8gr of black leaf tea
• 400ml water (for making tea)
• 200ml whole milk
• 4/6 teaspoons of white or brown sugar

Procedure:

• First, prepare the tea by infusing the leaves at 95°C for 3-4 minutes and then strain it. Add sugar to it and let it cool until it is at room temperature.
• In a small saucepan, bring the water for the tapioca pearls to a boil and pour in the pearls. To adjust for cooking time: the “quick” ones readily available in the market cook in about 5-7 minutes, while if you chose to use the ones you prepared at home, the cooking time is about 30 minutes
• Stir the beads occasionally to keep them from sticking together: when they are ready they will tend to rise to the surface and you can drain them
• Divide the beads into 2 tall, capacious tumbler-type glass glasses.
• Add the tea into each glass and then the milk
• Accompany with bubble tea straw and serve!

The original bubble tea would involve making a brown sugar syrup in which to dip the tapioca pearls as soon as they are ready (this is how the pearls take on a dark color). If you want to include this step as well, instead of sweetening the tea you can simmer 100gr of brown sugar with 150 ml of water and dip the tapioca pearls in it before pouring them into glasses.

If you want a more summery version, you can add ice cubes before pouring in the milk.

Bubble tea recipe – Light and vegan version

You can make a lower-calorie, healthier, vegan version of bubble tea by taking these steps:

• Substitute cow’s milk with a vegetable milk of your choice, such as coconut or soy milk: avoid those that are too liquid, such as rice milk
• Instead of sugar, use agave syrup to sweeten tea

Instant bubble tea to enjoy at home

Are you lazy but want to indulge in bubble tea at home without making too much effort? Try our instant bubble teas ready in 5 minutes, such as the Machi Machi in matcha, oolong or yogurt flavors, or the bubble tea The Alley also available in peach and black sugar flavors. The packages you will receive already contain all the ingredients in the correct doses to make you a great bubble tea at home in just 5 minutes. Find everything in our online store!