Brown Sugar Boba Tea - How to Make Boba & Milk Tea
After trying multiple failed boba making methods, I finally found this brown sugar boba making method that has a 99% success rate! In this recipe, I will show you how to make chewy brown sugar boba with its classic brown sugar syrup, and the most special and eye-opening air fryer milk tea~
Equipment
- Nonstick saucepan
- Kitchen scale
- Air Fryer (optional, it's for making "air fryer milk tea".)
Ingredients
For making brown sugar boba
- 90 g water
- 40 g brown sugar
- ¼ tsp black food coloring (optional)
- 110 g tapioca starch
For making brown sugar syrup
- ½ cup brown sugar
- ½ cup water
For making milk tea
- 2 tbsp black tea
- 2 tbsp water
- 3 tbsp sugar (can use brown sugar or white sugar)
- 3 cup milk (or soy milk)
- ice cubes
Instructions
To Make Brown Sugar Boba
- Add 40g brown sugar, 90g water, and 1/4 tsp of black food coloring (optional) to a nonstick saucepan. Stir and bring to a boil over medium heat.
- Once the mixture is boiling (make sure it's "boiling" instead of "simmering"), add 2 tbsps of the tapioca starch to the saucepan. Mix well with a spatula (do not use a whisk) until the mixture is thickened - there should be no dry powder or watery liquid in the saucepan, the mixture should look like slime. Turn off the heat.
- Add the rest of the tapioca starch to the saucepan. Mix roughly with a spatula. Transfer the dough out to a kneading mat, or countertop covered with plastic food wrap.
- When the dough is still hot, knead the dough for about 3 minutes until it turns smooth. (It might look dry at the beginning, but DON'T add water to the dough. While the surface looks dry, the inner part is wet and sticky. We need to knead the dough until the dry part and the wet part are well combined.)
- Use a rolling pin to roll the dough into a ¼ inch thick square sheet. Cut ⅓ inch strips in one direction, then cut ⅓ inch strips in the perpendicular direction. In this way you will get some ⅓ inch x ⅓ inch x ¼ inch small cubes.
- Cover the brown sugar boba dough with a piece of food wrap to prevent it from getting dry. Take one of the cube dough, place it between your palms, then roll it into a small ball. (I found it's easier to roll bobas with my palms instead of my fingertips.) Repeat until you have rolled all the cube dough into bobas (See Note 1 below).
- In a medium size pot, boil half pot of water over medium-high heat. Add the bobas to boiling water. Stir gently to prevent them from sticking to each other.
- Once the water is boiling again, turn heat to medium-low, cover the pot with a lid, simmer the bobas for 20 minutes.
- 20 minutes later, transfer the bobas to a large bowl filled with ice water.
- Add ½ cup of brown sugar and ½ cup of water to a saucepan, stir and bring to a boil over medium heat.
- Drain the bobas from the ice water with a slotted spoon, add the bobas to the boiling brown sugar water. Stir constantly to prevent sticking, cook over medium heat for 3 to 5 minutes until the brown sugar water is thickened into a syrup texture.
- Transfer the bobas with the brown sugar syrup to a bowl. Set aside at room temperature (the bobas will turn hard in the fridge). Consume within 6 hours.
To Make Milk Tea
- Add 2 tbsps of black tea leaves, 2 tbsps of water, and 3 tbsps of cane/brown sugar to an air fryer safe bowl. Stir to make sure that all the black tea leaves are moistened.
- Air fry the mixture at 380 °F for 5 minutes, until there are some caramel color bubbles.
- Add 3 cups of milk/soy milk to the bowl. Air fry at 360 °F for 10 minutes. The bowl should be less than 80% filled to prevent the milk tea from spilling. (See Note 2 below)
- Place a strainer over a pouring cup, pour the milk tea through the strainer to filter out the tea leaves.
To Assemble Nrown Sugar Boba Tea
- Place 4 tbsps of brown sugar boba with brown sugar syrup into a tall glass.
- Tilt and rotate the glass to coat the inside wall of the glass with a layer of brown sugar syrup, so that this cup of drink would look "dirty" but appetizing. (That's why we call it "dirty milk tea" in Chinese.)
- Fill the glass 70% full with ice cubes. Pour the hot/warm milk tea directly over the ice cubes.
- Stir and enjoy using a boba straw.
Video
Notes
Note 1: This boba dough should not be sticky, therefore you don't have to coat the bobas with tapioca starch. However, if in any case your bobas feel sticky, or you are not going to cook them right after making them, you can lightly dust them with tapioca starch and keep them in a food storage bag or an air tight container.
You can store uncooked bobas in the freezer for up to 2 weeks. And you don't need to thaw them before cooking.
Note 2: The bowl in the air fryer should be less than 70% filled to prevent the milk tea from spilling. If your air fryer basket is not big enough, you can cut the recipe in half, so that you will be adding 1 tbsp of black tea, 1 tbsp of water, 1 tbsp of sugar, and 1½ cup of milk to the bowl.