I know: By now everybody probably knows bubble tea. I came to appreciate it as well as a refreshing summer drink with lots of variations – but always with those little chewy tapioca balls.
What I don’t like about those bubble tea shops that are popping up all around are all those artifical flavours in form of syrups, powders or jelly bobas that pretend to be mango or watermelon or whatever. Yuck!
And you know what? It’s so easy to make bubble tea at home. All you need is basically milk, tea, ice, bubbles and some kind of syrup. Just keep in mind that a bubble tea is not only a drink, but in fact nearly a full meal…at least by calories. You’re slurping pure starch! But so yummy and fun starch 🙂
You can buy dried tapioka pearls – basically pressed cassava starch – at asian shops. Apparently you can get them in various colours. I’ve only got the plain white ones, so. To get chewy bubbles you simply have to cook the tapioka pearls in water. A lot of recipes say for about half an hour. I found this wasn’t enough, at least not with my pearls. They took about an hour until they were all transparent except of a little white core. Carefully wash the cooked pearls and keep them in a light sugar syrup or similar. I used agave syrup instead (one tablespoon for a cup of water). Stored this way, the tapioka bubbles will keep a few days in the fridge.
For one bubble banana shake mash 1 ripe banana and blend with 150 ml buttermilk. Fill drinking glass with one or two tablespoons tapioka pearls, add two or three ice cubes and fill with banana buttermilk. Ready to drink/eat.
The only thing I’m still lacking are those wide bubble tea straws to suck the bubbles through.
nadel&gabel 
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