Coconut Mango Bubble Tea
Coconut Mango Bubble Tea
In case you didn’t know, bubble tea is a sweetened drink, often made with fruit, fruit juice or tea. At the bottom of the glass are black, pearl tapioca that are sucked up through a large straw. They are the “bubbles” in your tea.
Bubble tea should be a little thicker than plain juice, but not as thick as a milkshake. The coconut milk was thick and gave me perfect texture in the bubble tea.
Bubble tea is one of those foods you either love or hate. I love it. The tapioca has a texture sort of like gummi candies, but a bit softer.
I always order bubble tea at Asian restaurants, so I decided it was time for me to make my own.
I ordered the black tapioca pearls online, along with the straws. You could probably find them at Asian grocery stores.
There were no directions with them, so I hunted online for how long to cook the tapioca. I found a wide range of times, so I used the suggestions from a company that sells tapioca. Worked pretty well.
I decided to make my own concoction for the actual drink. You can buy powders to mix with water to make bubble tea. I preferred to make my own.
So here is what I did.
Coconut Mango Bubble Tea
1 c. tapioca pearls*
6- 8 c. water
sugar syrup -directions follow
2 (12 oz.) cans mango nectar
1 can coconut milk
ice
bubble tea straws
Bring water to a boil- use plenty of water. Add tapioca pearls and stir gently so they don’t stick to the bottom of the pot. Don’t stir constantly, just a few times. Once the water returns to the boil, turn water to a low boil, cover pot, and cook 20 minutes. Turn off heat, leave pot covered and let tapioca sit another 30 minutes in the hot water.
While that is going on- make sugar syrup by boiling together 1 cup of sugar and one cup of water until sugar dissolves. set aside to cool.
Once tapioca are finished cooking and soaking in the water- taste one to make sure they are tender. If they are hard in the middle- turn heat back on and check every 5 minutes for preferred texture.
Drain off extra water in a strainer and rinse tapioca pearls to remove some of the stickiness. Add them to a bowl and cover with the sugar syrup.
This is where I had a problem with my first batch. I made the pearls the night before. They were perfect. I put them in sugar syrup and popped them in the fridge. The next morning they had become hard, chewy creatures that were not what I wanted. I drained off the sugar syrup and cooked them in a fresh batch of boiling water. They softened back up in about 10 minutes. My advice, if you want to make them ahead of time- drain well, rinse and place in fridge. Toss in the sugar syrup right before you are ready to serve them.
For each glass of bubble tea, mix a scoop of pearls with some of the syrup and place in a glass- I like about 1/4 cup of the pearls. Add ice. Combine coconut milk and mango juice in a one to two ratio- one part coconut milk and two parts mango nectar. Pour this in the glass with the pearls. This recipe makes 4 bubble teas.
*They double in size and are best used soon after cooking. Don’t cook more than you want to use in a day or two.
tapioca pearls after cooking
