You Can Make Bubble Tea

Dear World,

Are you sick of spending $5 every time you want bubble tea? Do you have that sneaky feeling that you can make enough for you and all of your friends for that much money (your real friends, not your facebook friends)?

I used to work at a bubble tea place, and I knew that bubble tea isn't that hard to make -- if you always buy your bubbles from the same supplier, use the same pot with the same amount of water on the same burner and cook them for the same amount of time. In other words, I knew it would take some trial and error to perfect the process in my own kitchen.

Here are three pieces of advice so you can learn from my mistakes:

1) Quick-cooking bubbles: there are pros and cons. Cons: unpronounceable chemicals (and they are made who knows where which can make even that hard to trust). Pros: they cook in five minutes instead of an hour, and the scary chemicals make them much more forgiving to chilling/freezing/reheating/etc. (you're really not supposed to do any of that, except maybe freeze them once at the beginning, but these bubbles make it more possible). If you start messing with the chilling/heating business you will get the hang of it.

2) As my grandma says, use a really big pan. Otherwise they will stick and burn (that was fail #2: we called those Lapsang Souchong Bubbles).

3) If you cook the bubbles according to the directions (or store them in the fridge, not according to the directions), and they get crumbly/crunchy/disintegrate-y (you know what I mean), you can restore them to their typical chewiness in the microwave. I wish I had known this before (fail #1).

So there really isn't much of a recipe here, since you should cook the bubbles according to the package directions (what you want to buy is "Tapioca Pearls" -- there are different kinds, but the brown ones that look like rabbit poop are what's in the bubble tea we're used to).

When they are cooked, immerse them immediately in a simple sugar syrup that you may have already made (I would use 2 c water for about 2 c uncooked bubbles). Then, either use them right away, put in the fridge for a day or so (and then microwave before use), or freeze until you are ready to microwave and use them.

You can add these to any tea, juice, coffee, etc. I made a big quart jar of really sweet iced tea, and then used 1 part tea:1 part soy milk in each glass. If you really want it to taste as creamy as at the bubble tea shop, you have to use gross non-dairy creamer (no judging).

Enjoy,

Tofu