I’m a huge fan of drinking bubble tea (or tapioca tea or boba tea) but not a huge fan of the $4 price tag on one of these tasty drinks. It didn’t take me long to source myself some large tapioca pearls and fat straws and mix up my own teas. And my honey milk tea is just as good if not better than my local bubble tea shop. Sorry, Bubble Island.

The first thing you need is some tapioca. I found this bag of large green tea tapioca pearls at Hong Kong Market in Houston. I checked a few other places and only found the small ones so if you live in an area where there are not a lot of Asian markets, then the internet will be your best friend. Luckily I live in Houston and we have a lot of Asian markets (yay).

You may have noticed that the bag of tapioca says “ready in 5 minutes” on it. Well it’s a lie. Please ignore. So first you have boil some water. 7 parts water to 1 part tapioca. Put the tapioca into the water after it gets to a rolling boil.

Let it cook for 15 minutes and then put the lid on and turn the heat off. Let it sit in the put for another 15 minutes covered.

It should look like this.

Next, drain the water from the pot and rinse the pearls with cold water.

To sweeten them, make a mixture of honey and agave syrup. I mixed German honey, orange blossom honey, and agave. You could probably just use one of these if you wanted to, but I like the mix.

I never really measure but this is probably about 3/4 cup of syrup mixture. Pour the rinsed tapioca in and let it sit until you’re ready to use it. I use some of the syrup to sweeten my honey milk tea.

Now for the milk tea. Pour some really strong black or green tea into a shaker and top with half and half or milk until it’s a nice creamy color. Sweeten however you like it. I added one packet of Truvia and a spoonful of the honey syrup from the tapioca. Add a few cubes of ice and then shake. The key to making bubble tea is the shaking, so shake it real good. Then shake it a few more times for good measure.

Add a few spoonfuls of the tapioca to your drink and a fat straw and you’re all set for a tasty treat. Holy yum these are good.

One thing to note about making your own bubble tea at home, it’s very addicting. Also, the tapioca is really a one time use. If you don’t use it all, you’ll have to get it back to the right consistency in warm to hot water before using again. After it cools down it starts to harden in the center. All that means to me is that my drink has a lot of tapioca in it so I don’t have any left over.