How To Make Milk Tea Without Boba

Milk tea most commonly refers to a Tawainese drink made with sweetened milk and tea, and it often comes with other flavorings. Most notably, you can find it accompanied by boba too. Boba, otherwise known as “tapioca pearls,” are balls that can be found at the bottom of the tea and have a chewy consistency. They may also be fruit-flavored.

While many people enjoy boba, many would rather have milk tea without it—and it’s unnecessary to have it to enjoy the drink. It’s very easy to make milk tea; brew some black tea, add your choice of sugar and milk, and whip some cream to top it off.

Let’s take a closer look at boba, milk tea, and what types of milk and flavorings you can use in milk tea to make it taste even better.

What is Boba?

Tapioca pearl ball bubble milk tea, popular Taiwan drink

Boba is a collection of tiny balls made from tapioca starch, most commonly found in iced tea drinks. It was created in Taiwan, and no one knows its exact origin, as many people claim their coffee shop created it. It didn’t take off in the United States until the ‘90s, though now it’s effortless to find boba.

Boba itself is tasteless, so most people steep it in brown sugar before adding it to a drink to make it sweeter.

Others may inject flavored syrups into the boba, which has led to the rise of fruit-flavored boba drinks. The term “boba” is now commonly used to refer to the tea drink itself and the starch pearls inside.

You can buy boba drinks at many cafes, buy boba itself at Asian markets, or even make it at home. Thanks to the rise in popularity, it’s not difficult to find.

How is Boba Tea Made?

What distinguishes boba tea from any other tea is the pearls. You can make tapioca pearls at home, saving you from spending money on expensive drinks at coffee shops. You can also buy them online (for example, on Amazon).

To make boba at home, follow these steps:

  1. Boil eight parts water to one part tapioca.
  1. Pour the tapioca in only when the water is boiling.
  1. Keep stirring lightly, and you should notice tapioca pearls floating to the top.
  1. Cover the pot for fifteen minutes when they’ve floated to the top, stirring every five.
  1. Turn the heat off and let them sit for a further fifteen minutes.
  1. Run cold water over the pearls.
  1. Steep the pearls in brown sugar until you’re ready to use them.

As well as brown sugar, you could also use a flavored syrup to steep the pearls in at the end of this process.

Can You Order Milk Tea Without Boba?

If you want to grab milk tea from a coffee shop, and it typically comes with the pearls, you can ask for it without boba.

However, since the word “boba” is often used interchangeably for the pearls and the drink itself, you might want to specify it’s the pearls you don’t want, mainly if boba tea isn’t that coffee shop’s specialty. Otherwise, they might not know what you mean.

How to Make Milk Tea at Home Without Boba

The good news is that despite the confusion often surrounding the wording, boba is an addition to milk tea and is by no means necessary to make it. Here’s how you can make milk tea at home, and you don’t have to add boba to it.

Step One: Steep the Tea

To draw out that flavor, you’ll want to steep the tea for as long as possible. Again, it’s best to use black tea for this process. Next, use two tea bags to one cup of boiling water, and pour the water over the teabags. You should then leave them alone for at least one hour.

That will ensure your tea is strong when you’re ready to drink it.

Step Two: Add Ice

Once you’re ready to drink your tea, find an appropriate glass and fill it halfway with ice (or, to your preference, if you want more or less, but it should be enough to make the tea suitably cold). Then, gently pour your tea on top of that.

If you add more ice cubes, your tea will become increasingly diluted, so be aware of that if you enjoy the robust taste coming through the milk mixture when you drink it. The amount of ice you should use depends on how much you like the actual flavor of tea versus how much you try to mask it with other things when you make it.

Step Three: Add Milk

Now, you will want to add your milk to the mixture. But, again, it’s your choice if you want to use evaporated milk like they traditionally do in Hong Kong, a place famous for its great iced tea, or if you want to use another milk. Vegans, for example, might want to use plant-based milk, which should work just as well for this.

Step Four: Add a Sweetener

If you love the strong taste of tea, you might want to skip this step. Instead, many people will want to add sugar or a liquid sweetener. Adding brown sugar to make Tiger Milk Tea is also a popular option.

But there are various options, and what you add (as well as the amount) is all down to personal taste.

Step Five: Enjoy!

Now all that’s left to do is enjoy your drink. If there’s something off about it, you can try and change the sweetener you use next time or the type of milk.

It may be that the milk didn’t have the right consistency or the sweetener didn’t work very well (for example, using powdered sugar instead of a liquid, which doesn’t tend to be as good in milk tea).

Can You Make Hot Milk Tea?

You will likely be served a cold drink if you ask for milk tea with no boba in a coffee shop. However, you can also make hot milk tea if you choose to. You’ll steep the teabags in boiling water for only a few minutes so the water doesn’t get too cold, and then pour the milk straight in.

The tea flavor may also disappear more quickly with hot tea, so it’s common to add a few more teabags than cold tea. However, three teabags in an average-sized mug should do the job just fine.

What Type of Milk Tastes Best in Milk Tea?

Making tasty milk bubble tea on wooden table

In Hong Kong, it’s very typical to use evaporated milk. In evaporated milk, around 60% of the water is gone, which leaves a very concentrated mixture behind. This helps dilute the tea even less and gives the tea a caramel-colored swirl that’s more aesthetically pleasing. That can be a big help for businesses!

If you don’t have any evaporated milk, creamier teas are better. That means whole milk is going to work best in your tea.

If you’re on a plant-based diet, you might wonder what milk alternatives are good in milk tea; much like if you were using regular milk, you’ll want to stick to something creamy. Oat milk does the best job of this.

Almond milk is also good, but you’ll have to be careful as the temperature shock can make it curdle in hot tea. If using hot tea, you might want to steep the teabags and then add that water to the milk rather than the other way around—an idea that might shock many people but works well in saving the milk!

Rice and cashew milk are too watery and do not work well for this job. So if you can avoid them, you should.

What Type of Sweetener is Typically Used in Milk Tea?

The sweetener you use in milk tea depends on your tastes. For example, if you want to add flavor, you could pick up a flavored syrup (vanilla, strawberry, etc.). You can also make your own syrup by boiling water with sugar, adding the flavors you want, and pouring it all through a strainer.

The most popular syrup to use is brown sugar syrup, though. You can make this by boiling equal parts water and brown sugar, creating something along the lines of simple syrup. While you could add brown sugar to your tea, liquid sweeteners work best with milk tea.

To Finish

Although milk tea has been made famous by adding boba in the United States, having those pearls in your milk tea drink is not a requirement. Any coffee shop should be happy to make the drink without them if you request it and are clear about what you’re asking.

You can also make milk tea at home and add boba or don’t. You can also add boba to hot tea, though it’s usually served the cold tea (and most would argue it’s better that way).

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