Follow this easy recipe to make authentic and creamy iced bubble tea at home.
Paired with all kinds of different bubble tea toppings: brown sugar bobas, grass jelly, mini mochi balls, red beans, lychee jelly …
How to make bubble tea like a boba shop?
Do you think that store-bought bubble tea always tastes creamier with a stronger tea flavor than your homemade one?
Many Boba shops use powder non-dairy creamers
Powder non-dairy creamer has a lower price and a longer shelf life than fresh milk. Simply add 2 tbsps of creamer into a cup of tea, boom, your milk tea will have a perfect balanced taste of “milk” and tea.
More importantly, powdered creamer won’t dilute the tea flavor like the milk will do.
So, why don’t we use powder creamer in this recipe?
According to Medical Associates of Northwest Arkansas, “the fat in nondairy creamer is usually trans fat”, an unhealthy fat, which can increase your bad (LDL) cholesterol while lowering your good (HDL) cholesterol.
As it’s suggested on medlineplus.gov, “you should limit trans fat to less than 1% of your daily calories. For someone with a 2,000 calorie a day diet, this is about 20 calories or 2 grams per day.” However, we will need at least 10g non dairy milk powder to make a cup of regular size (500ml) bubble tea.
Therefore, I never use powder creamer at home, even though it might make our bubble tea tastes better.
Should I use milk to make bubble tea?
Milk is a much healthier choice than powder creamer, however, whole milk contains about 87% water, which can make your bubble tea tastes watery and flavorless.
There are 3 methods to solve this problem:
- Brew tea directly in milk.
You can brew 10g black tea directly in 500g simmering milk/soymilk for about 10 minutes, or make some cold brew milk tea by soaking the tea bags in cold milk in the refrigerator overnight.
However, according to Two Leaves And A Bud, “if black and herbal teas are not steeped at hot enough temperatures, they can lack the full depth and breadth of flavor.” And the ideal brewing temperature for black tea is 100 °C (212 °F), which is difficult to be realized with milk – milk will overflow as soon as it gets 95 °C (203 °F).
2. Evaporated Milk.
Hongkong milk tea is the creamiest of all milk teas. The secret behind this special creamy and smooth texture is a balanced combination of sweetened condensed milk + evaporated milk.
Evaporated milk is fresh milk that has been heated so that around 60% of the water content evaporates. While condensed milk is a thick syrup-like sweetener which is made by condensing milk and sugar.
To make a creamy Hong Kong style milk tea, you just need to brew some strong tea with less water than usual, pour the tea to a serving cup, then pour evaporated milk and condensed milk to the tea as you serve.
3. Freeze distilled milk.
If you have no access to evaporated milk or condensed milk, another easy method to get rid of the water from the milk is freeze distillation.
We have introduced this method in my creamy iced coffee latte recipe, check it out here if you haven’t read that recipe yet.
How to make freeze distilled milk at home:
1. Freeze 500ml of whole milk in a plastic milk bottle for at least 8 hours until perfectly frozen.
2. Put the milk bottle upside down on top of a glass jar. Cover the connecting part with food wrap to repel bacteria.
3. Allow the frozen milk to thaw in the fridge for 4 to 6 hours, until you collect 200ml – 250 ml of distilled milk in the glass jar.
4. You can top the leftover ice with honey and fruits and eat it as bingsoo.
5. Add distilled milk to tea or coffee as a creamy substitution of regular milk.
Make milk tea base for bubble tea
Now that we have gotten freeze distilled milk ready, it’s time to make some rich and creamy iced milk tea as the base of our bubble tea.
EQUIPMENT
- 1 Tea kettle (Or sauce pan)
INGREDIENTS
- 300 ml water
- 10 g black tea or oolong tea (I used 2 oolong tea bags, each contained 5g black tea leaves)
- 200 ml freeze distilled milk (Made out of 500g whole milk. See instructions above.)
- Sweetener of your choice: Cane sugar, brown sugar, Sweet’N Low, honey, brown sugar syrup (see my brown sugar syrup recipe here.)
- 150 g Ice cubes
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Put 2 tea bags (5g each, 10g total) into a tea kettle (or a sauce pan), add 300ml of cold water.
2. Bring to a boil.
3. Turn off the heat. Add 200ml of freeze distilled milk.
4. Stir in sweetener (Cane sugar, brown sugar, Sweet’N Low, honey, brown sugar syrup … ) of your choice.
Note: If you’re going to add sweet toppings, such as sweet red bean paste, lychee coconut jelly, brown sugar bobas, you should make your milk tea less sweet at this point in time. I usually don’t add any sugar to my milk tea, since I will for sure add a LOT of sweet toppings to it.
5. Let the milk tea cool to room temperature. Keep in the fridge for at least 2 hours until it’s completely cooled. (So that the ice cubes won’t melt too fast in your bubble tea and the drink won’t get too watery. )
6. To serve, add your favorite toppings (see content above for how to prepare bubble tea toppings) and about 150g ice cubes.
Air fryer milk tea
Check out my newest air fryer milk tea hack in this new post!
6 Popular Bubble Tea Toppings
1. Taro Mash
The taro chunks are boiled until soft, mashed, then sweetened with condensed milk. Together with the milk tea, the creamy and sweet taro mash will flow smoothly through the straw.
If you can’t find taro mash bubble tea in your nearby boba shops, this is how to make taro mash for your bubble tea at home:
- Cut 150g taro into 1-inch cubes. Put them into a kettle cooker or a small saucepan.
- Add water to 500ml. Keep the lid half-opening to prevent from overflow. Bring to a boil.
- Boil over medium low heat for 45 minutes.
- Drain the water, use a fork mash the taro, stir in sweetened condensed milk (can be substituted with sugar and milk) to your taste.
- To serve, add about 4 tbsps of taro mash to the bottom of the cup, fill with milk tea and ice.
2. Grass Jelly
Grass jelly, also known as herb jelly, is created by using the Platostoma palustre plant. It’s a vegan friendly jelly. These black diamond like herb jelly can add a very special chilling, refreshing, and slightly bitter taste to your bubble tea.
I was a such big fan of Meet Fresh‘s Icy Grass Jelly Signature when I was in China.
If you can’t find a Meet Fresh store nearby, you can also easily make grass jelly at home with grass jelly powder:
1. Stir and dissolve 25 grams of grass jelly powder with 100 ml of cold water.
2. Boil 400 ml of water in a kettle cooker or in a saucepan, pour grass jelly mixture into the boiling water. Stir constantly over medium low heat until the mixture completely dissolved into a clear glue-like solution. Add sugar to your taste.
3. Pour the hot mixture into a square container, cool off to room temperature. Cover the container with the lid or food wrap, keep in the fridge for at least 2 hours.
4. Use a small knife to slice the grass jelly into cubes. Add to milk tea to make grass jelly milk tea.
3. Boba pearls
How can we skip boba in bubble tea?🤩
Check out my brown sugar boba recipe in this post!
The special chewing experience of the sweetened tapioca pearls makes boba tea much more fun to drink.
Does homemade boba taste better than store bough ones? – Unfortunately, I don’t think so. 😂
Boba pearls are basically tapioca balls made with tapioca powder, brown sugar, and water.
The only difference between homemade boba and store bought boba could be that you will need to spend almost an hour on rolling a cup of boba pearls at home, while these instant boba pearls will only take you 5 minutes too cook.
4. Mini mochi balls
Chewy texture balls are just perfect for bubble tea. It could be boba made with tapioca starch or mini mochi balls made from rice flour.
You have probably noticed that these colorful mini mochi balls look like a smaller version of tricolor dango – Itachi Uchiha’s favorite snack.
You can make them with sakura and matcha powder by following my tricolor dango recipe. But you might have to spend an extra hour on rolling them into balls which are small enough to flow through the straw.
5. Red bean
My favorite topping for hot bubble tea is red bean. You can simply add some red bean paste to your milk tea to make red bean bubble tea.
Keep it in mind that red bean paste could be very sweet. You can actually use it to sweeten your milk tea. If your milk tea is already sweet enough, adding extra read bean paste could make it too sweet.
6. Lychee coconut jelly
Although I personally think lychee coconut jelly is too sweet, it has been Mr He’s favorite bubble tea topping all the time. Mr He insisted that I should introduce this topping to everyone.
So, may I have your attention everyone?🙋♀️
This is lychee coconut jelly. This is super sweet. That’s all I want to say about it~💁♀️
Thanks for your attention. 😁
7. What’s your favorite bubble tea topping?
Bubble Tea
Equipment
- 1 Tea kettle (Or sauce pan)
Ingredients
- 300 ml water
- 10 g black tea or oolong tea (I used 2 tea bags, each contained 5g black tea leaves)
- 200 ml freeze distilled milk (Made out of 500g whole milk. See instructions below for how to easily make freeze distilled milk.)
- Sweetener of your choice (Cane sugar, brown sugar, Sweet'N Low, honey, brown sugar syrup … )
- 150 g Ice cubes
Instructions
- Make 200 ml freeze distilled milk. (See detailed instructions in my "freeze distilled milk recipe". Shortly, you just need to freeze 500ml whole milk in a plastic bottle overnight, then flip the bottle upside down onto a second container, wrap any gap with food wrap, and allow it to melt in the fridge until you get about 200 ml distilled milk. )
- Put 2 tea bags into a tea kettle (or a sauce pan), add 300ml of cold water.
- Bring to a boil.
- Turn off the heat. Add 200ml of freeze distilled milk.
- Stir in sweetener (Cane sugar, brown sugar, Sweet'N Low, honey, brown sugar syrup … ) of your choice. Note: If you're going to add sweet toppings, such as sweet red bean paste, lychee coconut jelly, brown sugar bobas, you should make your milk tea less sweet at this point in time. I usually don't add any sugar to my milk tea, since I will for sure add a LOT of sweet toppings to it.
- Let the milk tea cool to room temperature. Keep in the fridge for at least 2 hours until it's completely cooled. (So that the ice cubes won't melt too fast in your bubble tea and the drink won't get too watery. )
- To serve, add your favorite toppings (see content above for how to prepare bubble tea toppings) and about 150g ice cubes.
Video
Hello!
Do you have the recipe or the exact measurement for how much evaporated and condensed milk is needed for Hong Kong-style milk tea?
No, since in Asian-style cooking, there aren’t really any exact measurements like in Western cooking. There are only things like “add a spoonful”, “add a pinch”, or even just “add to taste”. There aren’t any tablespoons or specific kitchen measuring tools, so it’s basically just a matter of personal taste.