Boba tea, also known as bubble tea, is one of my favorite treats. It is a tea based drink that has a bunch of chewy tapioca pearls added in it, made in Taiwan in the 1980s.
After spending a good amount of money on this drink I decided to see if it was possible to make it myself. I spent some time googling different recipes (as this is a drink from a different culture, I tried to find some recipes that aren’t so Americanized).
From some of the recipes I saw the tea itself would be easy to make, you simply have to steep some black tea in some milk. The tapioca pearls, however, would be much more difficult. The recipes called for a special kind of flour that help the pearls get their chewy texture. The pearls would also take hours to make (most recipes called for approximately 3 hours of your time).
I got myself ready and first went to my local grocery store. Most of the ingredients were easy enough to find, but as I expected (due to what I read online), I couldn’t find any tapioca flour. However, I was able to find some cassava flour, which is made out of the same kind of plant as tapioca flour. I grabbed the bag (despite its steep price) and was on my way.
The recipe was seemingly normal, you add the ingredients together to create a base. Then I had to roll balls out of the dough, coat them in flour, and boil them. This easily took the most amount of time (over an hour). Once the pearls were ready I warmed some milk for my tea, stepped it, and combined everything (also adding some ice in the process).
After hours of work (and about $20 on ingredients) my tea was ready! I took a long rewarding sip and felt immense disappointment. My biggest mistake was my decision to use chai tea instead of black tea. I don’t know how to describe the taste but it made me cringe.
Overall, I learned a couple of things from the experience! I was able to learn a bit about how food is made in another culture, including the difference in ingredients. I was also able to learn from my mistake of straying from the called for black tea for chai tea. Even though the taste was a bit gross, I still felt (and feel) proud of what I was able to make.
Sadly, you won’t be able to see any pictures because my mom threw away the boba before I could get a picture.
The Cons of Writing 