I enjoy drinking the bubble tea. Not the kind that you get in milk tea but the sorts you get dowsed in fruit syrup and some water, I guess. I had it way too many years ago and completely forgot about it. And then again, a couple of years ago and it was delicious. And since then, the bubble tea has been a favorite of mine. But most recently I had a Passion fruit and Mango flavored Bubble tea and it was plain disgusting.
And I knew the day was close where I would have to learn to make my own.
Today’s goal was to learn to cook the tapioca pearls. I got a store-bought pack of tapioca pearls. And the ingredients were clean. Almost a single ingredient except for the water. It was plain tapioca starch and water. So, I don’t think I will be making the Tapioca pearls from scratch, unless I want to include some food color in it, maybe.
Note - This may not be authentic but this is how I made it. If you know a better way of making them, I'm happy to learn.
Ingredients
½ cup of Tapioca Pearls
Water to boil
Molasses – 1 teaspoon
Sugar to make sugar syrup. You can use brown sugar or white. (I skipped this part, since, I don’t want too much sugar in my drink and also that I had added molasses)
Tropical Tang (I know. I could have made some juice as well. But I’m glad I did not have to make a juice)
Method:
Heat a pot of water.
Add the Tapioca Pearls.
Add Molasses.
Let it boil for 15 - 20 minutes.
Switch off the gas and let it cool.
Boil the Tapioca pearls again for 10 – 15 minutes
Switch off the gas and let it cool.
Boil the Tapioca pearls again for 10 – 15 minutes
Switch off the gas and let it cool.
Drain the tapioca pearls.
The Tapioca pearls should be transparent by now. But if they still seem to be opaque at the center, boil the tapioca pearls again for 10 – 15 minutes.
Add 3 tablespoon of sugar in a pan and add 1/3 cup of water and brink it to a boil and let it become slightly syrup-y in thickness. Add the tapioca pearls and give it a mix or 2 and switch off the gas (I plan to do this the next time).
Use it in Milk tea, fruit juice, or with syrup.
I made some tang to make my bubble tea.
My Tapioca Pearls Saga
The pack of tapioca pearls did not come with instructions on how long I should cook them for or any sort of directions. So, I looked up on the internet on how to cook the pearls. But it was not very helpful. Since, most of them made the tapioca pearl from scratch and their cooking time was roughly about 15 minutes.
I let the water come up to a boil. And I put in ½ a cup of tapioca pearls. And in 15 minutes, they looked almost the same as it did when I put them in. So, I cooked it for 5 more minutes. And nothing seemed to change. So, I went back to the internet and looked up some more, until I read a comment somewhere that cook it for 15 minutes and let it cool in the same water and it should be good to go. So, I let the pot come to a boil again and this time within a few minutes, I noticed a huge difference in the way they looked. I repeated the boil for 15 minutes and allow it to cool and boil again process once more and I was finally happy with the way it looked. I even tried a tiny bit with pineapple juice and it tasted good.
A perfect drink for a summer afternoon.
Since I don’t plan on using all the tapioca pearls I cooked today, I am going to leave some in the fridge for later and tomorrow and will be freezing the rest.
I will let you know how that goes.
Thank you for reading.
All photos are my own.
All photos are shot on a mobile phone.
