Tea Sommelier's Milk Tea Recipe

4.59 from 136 votes

Refreshing and delicious bubble tea made with tapioca balls, brown sugar, and black tea.

Prep Time5

Cook Time12

Steep Time5

Total Time22

Course: Drinks

Cuisine: Taiwanese

Servings: servings (16 ounces)

Author: Jee Choe

Boil water for tea.
If using an electric kettle with a temperature setting, set the water to 208°F. Use filtered water if possible.
¾ cup water
Steep tea in hot water for 5 minutes. Strain tea leaves or remove tea bags and let tea cool.
Don't steep for more than 5 minutes since it can make your tea bitter.
1 ½ tablespoons black tea

Boil water and brown sugar in a saucepan to make a brown sugar syrup. Add tapioca balls.
Combine brown sugar and ¾ cup of water in a saucepan and bring it to a boil. When you see big bubbles (2-4 minutes), add tapioca balls. Keep boiling for 8 more minutes on medium-high heat. Cool slightly, until tapioca balls aren't too hot to eat. They should still be somewhat hot.
(Follow directions on your tapioca ball packaging if you're using a different brand than the one I’m using.)
¾ cup water, ¼ cup brown sugar, ¼ cup tapioca balls

Add hot tapioca balls in brown sugar syrup into a cup. Add ice, cooled down tea, and milk or half & half.
Serve immediately and stir before drinking. Use an extra wide straw to drink.
1 cup ice, ⅓ cup milk or half & half

To keep the boba soft and chewy, add hot tapioca balls into the drink. The ice will cool it down a bit but make sure you don't use piping hot tapioca balls that can burn your mouth.
Do not make tapioca balls more than 1-2 hours ahead of time. After 4 hours, they’ll start to harden. The drink is the best when assembled and served right before drinking.
To adjust the sweetness, strain out the tapioca balls from the brown sugar simple syrup when assembling the drink. Add the brown sugar syrup last and adjust to taste.
The tea can be made ahead of time and stored in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. Don't add the milk or tapioca balls until you're ready to serve the drink.
Tea bags contains the lowest quality tea, but since it's going into a drink with sugar and milk, you don't need to use the highest quality so using tea bags is fine.