When the cravings hit at home, ordering bubble tea via food delivery services can really add up! Why don’t you try to make your own bubble tea to enjoy from the comfort of your home?Īsian Pantry’s easy bubble tea starter kit contains everything you need to create your own bespoke bubble tea. How to make bubble tea at home (it is actually really easy!) The black pearl is made of tapioca starch or cassava root, brown sugar and caramel which lends it its colour. White and translucent pearls are made of tapioca starch in its natural form. Tapioca pearls served in stores are usually black but can sometimes be white or transparent depending on the ingredient used to make it. In fact, the perfect texture of tapioca pearls is almost similar to fresh gummy bear! The texture should not be too hard or too soft. When prepared correctly, the pearls should not stick together. The consistency of tapioca pearls is super addictive. These days, bubble tea continues to evolve in both taste and texture- the most recent trend that blew up in Asia is brown sugar bubble tea, which uses natural brown sugar and fresh milk instead of plain sugar and creamer. Eventually, the milk in the milk tea was swapped out for non-dairy creamer, giving the drink its smooth, sweet and creamy taste. The topping choices expanded beyond tapioca balls to include elements like grass and almond jelly, red beans and pudding. Night market stall owners started introducing boba with fruit powders and syrups (the actual fruits were too expensive and went bad quickly). The “classic” Taiwanese bubble tea is made up of tapioca balls on the bottom, followed by a layer of shaved ice, and milk tea to fill out the rest of the drink.īubble tea evolved over time as it grew more popular throughout Taiwan.

At some point, someone thought to combine all these three popular ingredients into one drink, which gave us the iconic milk tea as we know it! Shaved ice and tapioca balls were considered common desserts in Taiwan at the time.

Milk tea was already well-known beverage in Taiwan, as tea was the most popular drink in East Asia. While the origin of Bubble Tea is hotly debated, it is widely agreed that the Boba culture started in the late '80s.

Who invented bubble tea