Brown sugar pearl milk tea

Happy 2021! :) This is a very belated post; I'm still catching up on my 2020 list haha (meaning if anyone's reading this, you'll see some more catch-up posts right after this).

Unlike many other boba/bubble tea fanatics, I am actually not a die-hard fan of tapioca pearls/boba hahaha. I'll still eat them if served to me, but nowadays I don't go out of my way to add them to my drink (saves not just $ but also space in your cup and tummy for more milk tea!). So when brown sugar pearl milk tea started becoming huge in the past couple of years, I was disappointed to find out that you couldn't just order the drink without the pearls (because the syrup is what they braise the pearls in). I actually tried to scour the internet for a recipe that didn't involve pearls—because also who wants to make pearls from scratch??—but for some reason I couldn't find any, and just put this on hold for many months.

Afterwards I realized I probably couldn't find any recipes because a) no one else wants just brown sugar milk tea without the pearls, and b) you can obviously use the same recipe and just not make the pearls LOL.

In any case, I had plenty of time on my hands thanks to SIP, so I went ahead and bought the tapioca starch to make the pearls from scratch. I figured if I was successful, I could share the results with my friends M&S who were the die-hardest fans of boba around town. I related really well to this particular blog post that complains a bit about the hype but makes it anyway, so I was like "if this cynical guy can make himself go through it then so can I." Rolling out the pearls turned out slightly frustrating because they dried up so fast, and I really thought I had wasted almost an entire package of tapioca starch just to have to dump them all out. Surprise, surprise—after you boil and braise them in the syrup they turn out really good regardless of their initial texture LOL. In fact, they turned out so good (warm, soft and chewy) that my roommates and I ended up eating almost all of them before I could pack some up for M&S hahaha. Thankfully there was just enough left for them, and they even gave good feedback on the drinks as a whole! :) (I forgot to get photos before delivering the drinks so I had to request the above photo from them xD)

P.S. you can also adapt the recipe to reheat pearls from a storebought, day-old boba:

1. In a small saucepan, boil 2:1 ratio of water:brown sugar (e.g. 1 cup water : 1/2 cup brown sugar)
2. Add pearls and simmer for 15-20 mins.
3. Mix in with milk tea and enjoy :)

(milk tea recipe)
(pearl/syrup recipe from Jun & Tonic)