Bubble Tea

Safety Tips

When you make any form of tea with kids you need to make sure you are careful when boiling water. There should always be parental supervision. 

A great way to safely boil water with kids is with a press button tea kettle. Most press button tea kettles are insulated, keeping the outside of the kettle from getting dangerously hot.

You can also boil water in the microwave. However, the water should be taken out after every couple of minutes and stirred then placed back in the microwave to be warmed some more. Water that is heated to high temperatures, to quickly, in the microwave can become heated to over boiling point causing it to boil vigorously and explode out of its container 

Parents should also be aware that the shape and size of the tapioca pearls can be a choking hazard to children under the age of 4 if swallowed whole.

Making it fun for kids

Boba tea may seem like an adult drink but there are lots of ways to make it fun for kids. Try getting traditional wide mouth boba straws or special to-go cups with fun designs. 

You can also change up the colors of the boba tea with things like 

-Matcha

-Blue spirulina or 

-Colorful fruit powders. 

Also try replacing the milk creamer with ice cream or freeze the drink and then blend it up, making it into a slushy like consistency. 

Can you hide fruits/veggies in different variations? 

There are many variations of boba tea, including some variations with smashed or pureed fruit in it. This tea is also a great sweet, dessert like drink, that is perfect for adding fruit or sweet vegetable juices too without compromising the flavors. Many variations of boba tea actually use fruit juice to replace the tea and adding a complimentary vegetable juice is an easy way to sneak nutrients into your kids diet. 

Standard ingredients

The traditional boba tea is created with green, black or oolong teas but any type of tea works. The other ingredients traditionally include milk or some form of  creamer, sugar, and black or white tapioca pearls. It can also be made without any form of creamer. You can also add too, or replace, the tea with coffee, juice, or flavored milk.

Traditionally boba teas were made with sugar dissolved into the hot tea but it is popular nowdays to make a simple sugar syrup to add to the tea. 

Black boba pearls are cooked with brown sugar, giving it it’s dark color. Whereas white tapioca pearls are made with green tea and have a slight green tea flavor.

Boba tea is also traditionally drunk with a wide mouth straw.

Boba tea vs bubble tea, what is the difference?

This popular Taiwan tea was first named boba tea because of the texture of the tapioca pearls in the drink. However, after boba was introduced to other countries it got the nickname bubble tea because the tapioca pearls look like bubbles. Boba tea also goes by the names of perl tea, black pearl tea and pearl shake, but they are all the same.

Where does boba tea come from?

The origin of this popular tea comes from Taiwan in the 1980s. However, exactly who invented the tea is unknown as there are two conflicting stories. The first story claims the tea originated in Tainan, Taiwan in 1986 where a teahouse owner was inspired when he went to a market and saw white tapioca pearls for the first time. The other story says the tea originated in Taichung, Taiwan in 1988 where a development manager for a tea house got bored during a conference meeting and started mixing random ingredients together.