Homemade Bubble Tea

You can call me childish, but homemade bubble tea is simply one of the best things in the world. I love to make it from scratch, with high-quality tea, homemade boba and plant milk, without refined sugar. And it’s an absolute bubble tea heaven. 

Whether you like classic or vegan milk tea, brown sugar or other flavours, this homemade bubble tea recipe will provide you with all the info and tips you need for making it from scratch. Keep reading to learn how to make the perfect bubble tea at home.

My family and friends have already tried different versions of this homemade bubble tea and were always amazed at how much better it is than the store-bought one. Plus, it is made from natural ingredients and you are always in control of what you are putting inside.

Well, I’ve been perfecting this homemade bubble tea for long enough, and now it’s time to share the recipe with the world. Hope you’ll enjoy it as much as we do!

What is bubble tea?

If you never tried bubble tea before, you are missing out! It is a seriously fun and tasty milky drink with soft and chewy tapioca pearls inside. Bubble tea originated in Taiwan in the eighties and is now popular around the world. It is a playful and delicious experience – sipping sweet milk tea and boba with a giant straw, chewing and drinking at the same time. 

As much as I love having bubble tea in one of the milk tea shops around town, I do usually find it too sweet and containing too many unnecessary ingredients that I wouldn’t usually put in my food. That is why I prefer to make my own bubble tea at home and be sure I am getting a sweet treat made from natural ingredients while enjoying its amazing taste and texture.

Also, I find the homemade bubble tea much tastier and nicer, and since I’ve started making it more often, I don’t even crave the store-bought one anymore.

Ingredients for homemade bubble tea

To make the best bubble tea from scratch, you will need the following ingredients:

• Tapioca pearls (boba) – homemade or store-bought. Check out this recipe for easy homemade boba pearls that will bring your bubble tea to the next level.
• Coconut sugar or dark muscovado sugar and water for making the dark sugar syrup.
• Milk or plant milk of choice. I love my bubble tea with good oat milk, soy milk or homemade almond and hemp milk. Full-fat coconut milk also works great if you want it to be richer and more creamy.
• Loose-leaf black tea or rooibos tea are my favourite tea options. They both work great in combination with boba and caramel notes of coconut sugar. If you are sensitive to caffeine from black tea, rooibos is the perfect substitute, being naturally caffeine-free. Instead of classic brewed tea, you can use homemade fruit purees or matcha. I will describe my favourite options later in the text.

How to make bubble tea from scratch

Making bubble tea from scratch is easy and fun. It allows you to customise it to fit your exact bubble tea dreams. Sweeter, less sweet, with any flavour you like, classic or vegan. This is how I assemble my perfect cup of bubble tea:

• Cook the boba pearls in boiling water and cool them down in ice-cold water. Then strain and briefly boil them in homemade dark sugar syrup. Different boba will require different cooking times, but it usually takes ten to fifteen minutes for fresh homemade ones and twenty-five to forty-five minutes for dried, store-bought ones. Find more details on this in my post about homemade boba pearls.
• Fill one-fourth to one-third of a glass with boba pearls and some of the syrup they were boiled in. You can also spread some of the syrup on the inside of the glass before that, to make it look more like in bubble tea shops.
• If your boba is still warm and you want the drink to be cold, you can add a few ice cubes on top of the boba pearls.
• Add the tea of your choice to fill the glass up to two-thirds, or a bit less if you prefer it more milky. If you are using fruit puree instead of tea, you can about two tablespoons to the glass.
• Fill the glass with milk or plant milk of choice.
• Stir with the boba straw before drinking, and enjoy your homemade bubble tea!

The best tea for homemade bubble tea

If you like the classic tea with milk flavour, I recommend using any high-quality loose-leaf black tea. You can either choose one with a stronger flavour (since you will add boba and milk, so you want the tea flavour to come through) or make a richer brew by adding more leaves than you usually would for a cup of black tea.

Earl Grey, jasmine tea and hojicha (roasted green tea) are also great options if you love that kind of flavour.

For the best caffeine-free milk tea version of bubble tea, I recommend rooibos tea. It is naturally tasty and goes perfectly with the caramel notes of boba cooked in dark muscovado or coconut sugar syrup.

Another cool caffeine-free tea option is mugicha – Japanese barley tea. Its toasty flavour is just perfect with boba and milk. Just make a stronger brew as mugicha is usually very light.

Different flavours for homemade bubble tea

Even though brown sugar and black (or other) tea will always be the classic bubble tea flavours for me, I sometimes like to experiment with other cool ingredients. I make them all from natural ingredients such as real fruits and plant powders. Here are some of my favourite flavours of homemade bubble tea.

Matcha bubble tea

Instead of brewing black or rooibos tea, whisk a dose of matcha tea that you would normally use for making your normal cup of matcha tea. For me, it is a gram of matcha powder with 60-70 ml (2-2.5 fl.oz.) of hot water. Pour that matcha over your tapioca pearls and add the milk of choice.

For making matcha bubble tea, I would use either transparent boba or matcha boba, and boil them in light muscovado syrup or light agave syrup with some water, instead of dark sugar – to keep that beautiful, bright green colour that matcha will naturally give to the drink.

Strawberry bubble tea

To flavour your milk tea with strawberries (or any berries) instead of black tea, you can make a delicious fruit purée in no time:

Add ¾ cup of finely chopped strawberries and a few tablespoons of water to a pan. Bring to a light boil and reduce the heat to keep it simmering. Add up to a tablespoon of lemon juice to prevent oxidation and keep the colour bright. Add 3-4 tablespoons of light agave syrup and let it simmer for a minute while mixing with a spatula. Turn off the heat and blend everything into a smooth, liquid purée. 

Use as much of this purée as you like to flavour your bubble tea. 

In my opinion, strawberry milk tea is best combined with translucent boba cooked in light syrup (agave or light muscovado), or strawberry boba in light syrup. But if you prefer dark boba and dark or coconut sugar syrup, it will also be very tasty.

Mango bubble tea

Follow the same steps that I wrote for strawberry bubble tea, just replace the strawberries with mango. The mango might need a minute or two longer to cook, but again, you cannot go wrong – just simmer it until it softens.

Mango milk tea can be combined with translucent boba, dark sugar boba or mango boba, as well as light or dark sugar syrup – whichever if your favourite combination.

Taro, ube or purple sweet potato bubble tea

I adore the flavour of taro in sweets, but fresh taro is not that easy to get in Croatia where I currently live. That’s why I sometimes substitute it with purple sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes are also earthy and sweet, with a bit less aroma than taro. 

They can be great in sweets such as cakes, creams and ice creams if you like that earthy, nutty sweetness. That’s why I like to use them for milk tea as well. Just cook the sweet potatoes until soft, mash them into a watery puree with some of the cooking water and agave or maple syrup (use a food processor for the best result) and use that puree to make your bubble tea drink. 

Instead of cooking, you can bake the sweet potatoes for a sweeter, caramel-like result. Then just add enough water and sweetener to blend it into a smooth and watery puree that can be easily mixed into your milk tea. 

Check out this post to learn how to bake sweet potatoes perfectly in the oven.

You can also use ube (purple yam) for the same purpose. If you choose taro or ube, just make sure you cook them properly to remove the oxalates and make them safe to eat.

Check out my homemade boba pearls recipe to learn how to make tapioca pearls from scratch, in different colours and flavours that can match your preferred bubble tea flavour! Imagine matcha bubble tea with matcha-flavoured boba… Or the same with strawberry? There are so many options, all-natural, homemade and delicious.

If you want to learn how to make boba pearls in different flavours and colours to go with your naturally flavoured bubble tea, check out this post about homemade tapioca pearls for bubble tea.

Equipment for making bubble tea at home:

• Boba straws – the most important thing if you want to enjoy your bubble tea are straws wide enough for boba pearls. I didn’t see them in stores where I live, but it was super easy to find them online. I bought four glass straws with a cleaning brush and they are perfect.
• Tea strainer
• Cooking pot
• Simple highball glasses

Yield: 2 portions

Homemade Bubble Tea

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Make the most delicious bubble tea at home with this easy homemade bubble tea recipe. It’s with natural ingredients, no refined sugar, and vegan options included.

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 20 minutes

Total Time 30 minutes

Ingredients

• 100 g dried tapioca pearls (boba) - homemade or store-bought
• 3 tbsp coconut sugar or dark muscovado sugar
• 3 tbsp water
• 1 tbsp black or rooibos tea leaves
• 200 ml water
• 200 ml milk or plant milk

Instructions

1. Brew your tea of choice and let it cool down. Alternatively, prepare fruit juice or purée (see the text in the post for more details).
2. Boil the tapioca pearls and cool them down in cold water.
3. Prepare the sugar syrup: add equal volumes of dark muscovado or coconut sugar to a pan, bring it to a boil and stir to dissolve the sugar.
4. Add the boba pearls to this syrup and let them simmer for a minute or two.
5. Add a few tablespoons of cooked boba pearls with syrup to a glass.
6. Pour around 100 ml of tea, then add some ice if needed.
7. Top up with milk or plant milk of choice.
8. Stir and enjoy!

Notes

• Even though tapioca pearls are easy to find in international food markets, I always prefer making some fresh ones at home. Check out this boba recipe to learn how to make the best tapioca pearls for your bubble tea.
• If you use store-bought tapioca pearls, check the cooking time on the packaging - it can be anything from five minutes for the fast-cooking ones to fifty minutes for the slower-cooking boba.
• Fresh homemade tapioca pearls take about ten minutes to cook. Dried and frozen homemade ones usually take up to half an hour.
• See the text in this post for more ideas on different flavours such as fruity or matcha bubble tea.