How To Prepare Boba For At-Home Bubble Tea

Bubble tea is a drink you have to chew, a playful combination of boba pearls and iced tea that's a whole experience in a cup. You can get it at speciality boba shops or from the menu at your local coffee and tea house. You'll see bubble tea at some restaurants, especially those with a menu based in cuisines from Thailand or other regions in Southeast Asia. Even Starbucks put boba pearls on the menu in 2024, giving their customers the option to order bubble tea in the drive-thru. While it's great to have so many options for finding bubble tea out and about, it's also easy to make at home for a morning treat. You can also add bubble tea to your list of whimsical ideas for a perfect afternoon tea party. All you have to do is learn how to prepare boba pearls, and don't worry, that's an easy process.

There are hundreds of ways to make bubble tea. You can make it with or without milk, add any kind of flavorings or fruit, and there's even a hot version. The foundation is the same: boba pearls. These chewy balls have a gummy-like consistency, are usually about the size of marble. Because boba pearls are often made with brown sugar, they bring a little sweetness to your iced tea in addition to their completely different texture. To make boba, just boil dehydrated tapioca pearls in water with some brown sugar or another sweetener. 

There's a wide range of boba pearls available, each offering a different experience when they're added to bubble tea. Two popular boba styles are black boba pearls and white boba pearls, but there are other colors to choose from, too. Believe it or not, there are also about six sizes of boba pearls as well. The smallest are micro-pearls that are just 5 millimeters in size and offer a more subtle boba experience. On the other hand, the largest are 15-millimeter jumbo pearls, about the size of a large chickpea, which are much more noticeable. Choosing between these options of boba styles won't impact the taste of your drink as much as it will change the aesthetic and texture.

What will change the flavor of your bubble tea is combining your tea with popping boba pearls. These orbs are filled with juicy jelly in a wide range of flavors like passionfruit popping pearls, lychee-flavored pearls, and mango-flavored pearls. Often these pearls, like Tea Zone's Strawberry Popping Pearls, are already constituted so they don't require any cooking. You can just spoon them from the container to your tea and you'll have a beautiful glass of bubble tea ready in less than a minute.

The most popular kind of bubble tea is made with iced black tea and milk, but there are endless combinations you can try. Making your own version allows you to know exactly what's in your cup. Some dairy-free boba teas aren't vegan if you buy them at a coffee shop, for instance, and there could be additives in the drink's other ingredients you don't want. Make your own version at home to make sure it meets your dietary standards and explore the variety of the drink while you're at it.

Make an at-home version of the popular taro milk tea by combining tapioca pearls with a little milk, water, and taro root powder mix. Other beloved bubble tea varieties include honeydew, strawberry, matcha, and Thai milk tea, which combines black tea and boba pearls with sweetened condensed milk. Mix boba pearls with any kind of tea to make bubble tea and add all kinds of fruits to dress up the drink. You could even add a dash of edible glitter or swirls of caramel and chocolate for a more decedent take on the drink. You could even skip the tea altogether and bring back one of the popular snacks from the '90's we'd love to taste again, recreating the drink Orbitz with some vanilla flavored sparkling water and orange popping pearls.