National drink of Taiwan: boba tea

During my 4 years in college, I probably on average drink 1-2 cups of boba tea every day. I am not going to go into the details of the amount of calories in those tea, just know I easily lost 20 pounds by cutting boba tea out of my life after I graduated from college. =D

When I was drinking boba tea in college, a huge cup of tea cost about 80 cents. Of course that was many many years ago, but even today, if you get boba tea in Taiwan, it cost less than $2. Here in the US, a cup of boba tea can easily cost you close to $5, and unless you live somewhere with a decent Asian population, you won't be able to find it.

My 7 year old tried it when we were in Taiwan and she was in love with boba ever since. I never thought about making boba at home but hey, with the quarantine, time is our friend and sky is the limit. So I found a recipe and the end result was fantastic. It was a bit labor intensive but this is a great weekend project for the whole family!

Ingredients:

Tapioca starch: 100 g(do NOT replace with any other types of starch, you need to use tapioca starch)

Brown sugar: 40 g

hot boiling water: 65 g

That's it, easy peasy!

Add the sugar in the water, boil the water and make sure the sugar is fully melted. Add the sugar water in the tapioca starch and mix to form a dough. If the dough is too dry, add a bit more water, if the dough is too watery add a bit more tapioca starch. The perfect dough will be kinda like play dough, it won't stick to your fingers.

Lightly sprinkle your work space with some starch, and then roll the dough out to about 1/4 inch thickness, then cut the dough up in 1/4 inch tiny squares. Then here comes the part that you can use all the help you could get, roll those little squares into round little balls with your hands. Once you are done rolling them, keep them on a baking sheet, don't stack them because they will stick to each other!

Once you are done with it, boil a pot of water, and add the boba in there. Make sure you stir it so the boba don't stick to the bottom of the pot or to each other. Keep stirring occasionally until the water boils again, then cover the pot and turn down the stove and cook for another 5 minutes, and then after that, turn the stove off and keep the lid on for another 10 minutes.

Then you are done! Use a strainer and take the boba out, add 1 Tsp of sugar in it and mix the sugar in. Serve immediately, enjoy!!