Bubble Milk Tea

Step 1

- In a sauce pot, add in the brown sugar, the water, and vanilla extra. Give it a stir. Cover it and bring it to a boil. Don’t go away. It will only take a minute. If you are not next to the stove, it will be over boiling and the water will evaporate too much. Then you won’t have the correct amount of liquid.

Step 2

- Once it comes to a boil, add in 1/3 of the tapioca starch immediately. Stir to thicken the liquid. Then turn off the heat. Add the rest of starch in. Mix everything together. Do it quickly and try to gather all the starch together. Transfer it to a working surface. Knead it by hand. It should still be pretty hot, and you hand mind gets a little pain because of the heat but you do want to work fast because if the temperature cools down, the dough will be tough to knead. I know it looks very messy, but trust me, it is very easy to work with. Will take you less than 3 minutes to get it smooth.

Step 3

- Roll it into a 1/5 of an inch thick sheet. Slice it into strips and cut it into small little cubes. Get a bowl. Dust some tapioca starch in it so when you collect the little pearls, they don’t stick together. Then you just shape them into little balls. This is optional. It takes a lot of time to do it. But if you don’t mind the shape, you can just leave it like cubes.

Step 4

- Put them in a sieve and shake off all the excess starch. If not, when you boil it, the starch will thicken the water and it will be a bit messy.

Step 5

- Although the recipe is a small amount but you can save it. Just put it in a container and freeze it. When you need to cook them again, don’t need to defrost, just directly boil them.

Step 6

- You want to use a big pot and lots of water because tapioca balls need a lot of space. They like to stick to each other.

Step 7

- Add the pearls in. They will sink to the bottom immediately. Keep the flame on high. Gently stir them so they don’t stick together. Continue doing this for a minute. You will see all the pearls are floating on top. Then cover the lid. Ture the heat to low, let it cook for 4 minutes.

Step 8

- during this 4 minutes, you want to open the lid a few times and give it a stir because they always like to stick together.

Step 9

- Turn off the heat and let it sit in the water with the lid on for another 2 minutes. Take them out, put them in ice water for a little extra chewiness. the color was brown, now they become even darker after the ice bath. Take them out again. Try to get rid of the excess water. and add some brown sugar. You can also use honey or syrup. It is kind of like a lube, without it, the bubbles will get dry and sticky to each other. Now, you have your bubble pearl made. It is handmade so it won’t be perfectly round like the store bought ones. It will only last 2 days in the fridge for the best texture. So, better to make it fresh and eat it fresh.

Step 10

- Now, let’s make the milk tea. It is so easy. I am using my loose black tea that I brought from China. You can also use tea bags. Just follow the instruction to see how many tea bags do you need for 1 liter of liquid. Because I am going to use one liter of milk. Add in the tea. Give it a stir. Bring this to a slight simmer, not a full boil. You can see the small bubbles coming up. Then turn off the heat. Let the tea sit in the hot milk for 15 minutes to maximize the tea flavor. 15 minutes later, the tea should change color and now you can season it with some sugar and bring it to a full boil. Drain out all the tea leaves. Them you have the milk tea.

Step 11

- Now you can put your bubble milk tea together. It can be served hot and cold. Imagine holding a cup of warm bubble milk tea in the winter, that will be so comfortable.