Active Time
30 minutes
Total Time
1 hour and 30 minutes
The classic combination of sweetened black tea, milk, and tapioca balls is the very definition of bridging cultures with a drink. However much you tweak your milk tea with different syrups, milks, or teas, you just hear that same beat underneath and you know what it is. It's like Queen and David Bowie’s “Under Pressure.” It's in “Ice Ice Baby” and a million other songs, but no matter who’s spitting rhymes, you'd never mistake it for something else.
After testing all the possible combinations of black teas that would make the perfect base for a classic boba, we finally landed on the perfect combination: mellow and round, slightly astringent, and fiercely strong. It’s delicious and zippy and powerful enough to stand up to the milk and sweetness. Assam is the maltiest of the famous black teas. It has a very smooth tea taste to it, but it’s a little mellow on its own. The reason we use Ceylon, which is from Sri Lanka, is that it has more of the tannic quality you associate with tea and adds a punch the Assam doesn’t bring. Ceylon is also the most popular variety for traditional milk teas. Yunnan teas tend to be a little smokier. This gives our black tea blend a complexity we just love.
Our house sweetener is rich with a nice background of depth from the brown sugar. Still, it’s got a pretty clean flavor for our classic teas. If you’re feeling ambitious, we recommend making syrups out of black sugar, rock sugar, or even Japanese Kuromitsu. That’d make your milk tea next-level next-level. You can keep this sweetening syrup on hand in the fridge for a month, so it makes sense to prepare more than you’d need for just one drink.
The way you control the texture of the boba itself is through the boiling time. Don’t use boba that’s labeled “quick cook”—that kind of boba has a hardening quality in the starch that isn’t properly QQ. We want straight-up tapioca for this milk tea recipe. Remember to stir throughout the cooking process. Don’t let the boba stick to the bottom of the pot, since that might cause some of the balls to burn or scorch. The next key is the syrup bath, which adds the flavor. Some places keep their boba in a syrup bath over heat, which is a personal preference. We like our boba to be at room temperature for our drinks, so it doesn’t melt the ice in our milk tea and thus dilute the flavors of the ingredients and toppings. Speaking of toppings, feel free to add prepared grass jelly, coffee jelly, matcha pudding, konjac jelly, sago, or aiyu to your heart's content—or serve your milk tea without them.
Ingredients
Makes 1 glass
Sweetening Syrup
Boba (Tapioca Balls)
Brewed Black Tea Blend
To assemble each drink
Preparation
Sweetening Syrup
Step 1
Combine the brown and white sugars in a heatproof bowl. Whisk in the hot water until dissolved. Let cool, then pour into a clean, resealable container and refrigerate up to 1 month.
Boba
Step 2
In a medium saucepan, bring the water to a rolling boil over high heat. Add the boba and cook for 30 minutes, stirring frequently during the first 10 minutes of cooking to prevent the boba from sitting at the bottom of the pot and burning. Cover the pot so the water doesn’t evaporate, and stir occasionally for the remainder of the time. Add more hot water if necessary to keep the boba covered.
Step 3
After the 30 minutes of cooking, take the pot off the heat and let the boba rest for another 30 minutes.
Step 4
After the resting time, strain the boba in a colander or a strainer, discarding the water, and pour them into a mixing bowl. Stir in ½ cup Sweetening Syrup. After an additional 30 minutes (so 1½ hours total from the time you started cooking), the boba should have absorbed the sweetness; it won’t get any sweeter if it continues to sit longer.
Step 5
Now your boba is ready to serve; hold it warm or at room temperature (our preference). When you add it to drinks, scoop some of the balls out with a little strainer to leave the syrup behind. The boba keeps for about 4 hours before it starts to lose its texture.
Brewed Black Tea Blend
Step 6
Combine the tea leaves in a mixing bowl; stir well to fully mix. Store in an airtight container.
Step 7
Fill a tall glass with the ice cubes. Heat filtered water to 190ºF. Steep 2 tablespoons of the tea leaf blend in 5 oz. of the hot water for 4 minutes. Strain the tea over the ice, and set the glass aside to allow the ice to fully melt.
To assemble
Step 8
Fill a glass with the toppings, if using, and the ice, and then add the syrup. Pour the tea over the ice. Add the half-and-half. Stir until everything is mixed.
Leave a Review
Reviews (10)
Back to TopThe Pearl Milk Tea is Good
ArabelaramosRaptorRaptor@gmail.com
Philippines,Ilocos Norte
11/2/2023