Photo courtesy of Alau2

It is known to be invented in Taiwan around 1980. This sweet and refreshing tea sometimes is called tapioca pearl drink, black pearl drink, boba tea, or bubble drink. The main components of this sweet tea are tea, sugar, milk, and chewy black tapioca balls. This tea has many flavors and colors for you to choose.

The most distinguished feature of this tea is the tapioca balls. They sometimes are called tapioca pearls. They often are black and quite chewy.

These pearls can come in 2 sizes. You can adjust the amount of tapioca balls depending on the amount of tea and the size of the cup. If you have tried bubble tea before, you will see lots of black pearls swirling around. If people shake the cup, these pearls will help mixing the tea together.

When you finish the tea, you can suck up these tapioca pearls and chew them. Because these pearls are submerged in sweet tea, you can still taste the essence of tea while chewing these black tapioca pearls.

Now, you probably have some ideas about this type of tea. Here is some bubble tea recipe that you may want to try. They are quite simple to make. The only thing that you may want to pay attention to is that the tapioca balls can lose their chewy properties quite fast if not used right after they are cooked.

How to cook the tapioca pearls

You can buy these tapioca pearls in Asian’s grocery stores or tea-specialty stores. There are small and large pearls. Here are some tips to help you to get the kind of tapioca pearls you want. First boil the water, submerge the pearls into the water. For larger tapioca pearls, cook for ~ 25 min. For smaller pearls, you should cook for 15 minutes. When done, let the pearls cool down for another 15 minutes. Then you can rinse them and add them to your cup of sweet tea. The cooking time above is just a general guideline. If you shorten the cooking time, you will get chewier tapioca balls. Cook longer and you will get less elastic tapioca balls.