The Basics of Bubble Tea
It???s late. I can???t sleep???perhaps a snack will help. I???m thinking of going to the kitchen and nibbling on leftover mac n??? cheese and maybe sampling the new flavor of Ben & Jerry???s stashed in the freezer–there is always a new flavor of Ben & Jerry???s. But I don???t. Instead I eat nothing and tell myself the story of a cold tea drink available at the night markets in Taiwan. Read on: food stories are pleasurable, but not caloric.
The night markets in Taiwan are meeting places for hungry, social insomniacs and partyers. The markets are chockablock with stalls where one can buy exotic snakes or knock-off Versace, while ordering porn and food at 2 am. These markets are the 1-900-GOT-SNACK of after-dark Asia. There are many night markets in Taiwan, and they all specialize in buzz food; the kind of food most palatable in a dream, or otherwise-altered, state. At the night markets you can find a range of food and drink, including; dumplings, noodles, blood pudding on a stick, stinky tofu, and bubble tea. The most famous night market in Taiwan is the Shilin night market, where it is said that a certain cold drink that also doubles as a midnight snack was created: Boba, a.k.a, bubble tea. Bubble tea, unlike the night market???s bloodsickles, is readily available as a snack in larger US cities with strong Asian populations. In New York and San Francisco, noshing on cool bubble tea is as common as stopping at Starbucks for an iced latte.
Bubble tea has an unproven origin, but lore attributes it to the Shilin night market where it was first sold in the 1980s as a chilled evening elixir for cruisers, as well as during the day to school children on their way home from class. Bubble tea, otherwise known as Boba or Black Pearl Milk Tea, consists of a base of tea or coffee, with milk or creamer added, and then finished with black tapioca pearls(boba) the size of large peas in the bottom of the drink. All the ingredients are shaken with shaved ice, like a martini, and then served straight up in a 16oz cup complete with jumbo straw for slurping the boba(tapioca pearls) from the bottom. The chewy tapioca adds umami, not flavor, to the drink. The flavors in bubble tea come from an immense menu of add-ins; there are more add-ins for bubble tea than flavors of Ben & Jerry???s. Some of the more popular flavors are honeydew, lychee and coconut. While most boba is sweet, all the taste sensations are possible in this drink. There are spicy boba teas such as ginger; salty ones, like sour plum; as well as savory milk teas, that contain the flavors of barley or sesame. But the two sensations that are always present in this caffeinated snack are sweet and umami. These tastes come from the tooth-jarringly sugared syrup and tapioca pearls found in every glass of black pearl milk tea.
I???ve experimented with making bubble tea at home for two reasons: mostly, there isn???t a boba stall on my way from point A to point B, and secondly, I find most prepared-by-someone-else boba too sweet. I make my own sugar syrup and mix-ins to avoid buying these things from boba supply stores because they are costly (and again, often too sweet for my taste). The one ingredient I do mail order is the black tapioca pearls. I have tried using the grocery store-variety white tapioca pearls in my homemade bubble teas, but the results were poor.
Stay tuned for directions and recipes for making your own bubble tea at home.
Don’t order milk teas — order “red” teas instead. That way you can always ask for “less sugar” or “no sugar”. I really don’t see the point of making your own boba drinks in Taiwan because it’s so cheap, unless you like to toil in the kitchen just for a quick drink. Besides, boba doesn’t keep well, so if you make too much, it gets mushy; if you make too little — again — what’s the point?