Making Your Own Bubble Tea!

6:33 pm HelenLJohnson 3 Comments

I came back from Singapore in 2011 bringing back many memories from my research trip, one of which was the deviously addicting chewy drink called bubble or boba tea. A few years later, bubble tea shops and stalls opened around Liverpool and Manchester and I made a name for myself as the girl who could not go into a city without picking up a cup of milky, chewy goodness.

This wasn’t enough however, I started to make it at home to drink (and eat!) while I worked on my cosplays long into the night before a con. I’ve tried many different ways to create my favourite beverage, instant tea, condensed milk, normal black tea, ice cubes, blended ice, instant tapioca…however it did always seem a bit of a fuss. Boba Mix came to the rescue and kindly sent me a sample pack of matcha bubble tea when they were doing a special offer. So I thought I would show you how easy it is to make your own bubble tea at home!

First of all, Boba Mix will send you prepackaged amounts of everything you need except for fresh ingredients. So all you will need is water, milk, sugar, ice and container of your choice!




Make some tea with 250ml of water and brew for 1-2 minutes.




Then add the bubble tea powder (this is what gives the drink that bubble tea shop taste), some sugar if you like and 100ml of fresh milk. They recommend whole milk however I only have skimmed which worked perfectly well. For the proper Taiwanese taste you could swap the milk for 50ml of evaporated milk or use 50ml of condense milk. The condense milk taste takes me right back to Singaporean Kopi or the ice coffees I had in Cambodia.




Place in the fridge and get on with plumping those pearls!



Boil 20g of pearls in 250ml of water then simmer for 5 minutes. Remove and place in a sugar solution. The easiest way to do this is add two tablespoons of sugar and two tablespoons of lukewarm water. Any remaining solution can be stored in the fridge for 2-3 days (so no excuses if you have more cravings in the following days!)


Add the pearls to a glass and pour the tea mixture over the top. Add some ice and a straw and you are done! Unfortunately someone took all the ice we had so I left my mixture in the fridge a little longer than the recommended 40 minutes to makes sure it was extra cold.



The bubble tea was delicious; using the powder mix certainly gave it an authentic taste and was so easy as everything I needed came in one pack. You can buy full size packs from their eBay store and follow them on Twitter and Facebook.


(Disclaimer: Boba Mix haven't paid me to write this post, I participated in a special offer of a free pack they were hosting at the time on social media)