Making bubble tea - and how we drank it without thick straws

I recently made bubble tea for this party my mum decided to host. It wasn't the kind of party where people get drunk and party party      (But it was still fun :) .) It was just a get-together of a couple of families in London. 

A few days before the party we were in this Asian shop (I LOVE, love, love Asian shops) and I saw these dried tapioca pearls for making bubble tea. I decided I HAD to get them (Or rather, I had to get my mum to get them) so I asked my mum to buy them, and she said, "Yes," and, "Why not make the tea for the party?" Actually, at that time it wasn't going to be a party, just a Korean family; only later did we decide to invite other people. So I decided to make it for the guests.

STRAWS:

That's what I remembered as we got in the car after one of our big supermarket trips. How can you make bubble tea without straws?! So I told my mum, who told my dad. He offered to run me into the supermarket to find some, so we did a last minute dash into the shop to find them. Guess what? There were no wide straws. And you need wide straws for bubble tea. We bought the thin ones and prayed for god to forgive us.

When we got home I did something really clever, and checked the packet of tapioca pearls to see if it said to soak them overnight. The party was the next day, so if I woz gonna soak da boba I woz gonna have ta soak it NOW. Checking the packet involved peeling off a really well stuck sticker that said the instructions in Chinese or something, to reveal the English printed beneath. After about seven minutes of scratching off the label, it turned out you didn't need to soak them after all, but it was still a clever idea to check :)

BTW, boba is another word for tapioca pearls.

The next day I boiled the tapioca pearls, and tasted them. They weren't like the ones in the shop that I had bubble tea at once; they were chewy all through, whereas the shop ones were filled with flavoured syrup and weren't as thick. Mine totally lacked sweetness. I had to do this emergency google search to look for ways to sweeten them. I found out that you could make your own syrup by boiling a cup of white sugar, a cup of brown sugar, and two cups of water. Then you had to soak the boba in that and put it in the fridge. I did that. The bubbles still tasted completely different from the shop ones, but they now had some flavour.  I was saved!! 

Next step was the tea. I decided on green tea with normal cow's milk and condensed milk. I would have used soya but I couldn't find an open one, and didn't have time to look. And couldn't be bothered to look.

The tea was AMAZINGLY, SUPER DUPER fun to make. There was a can of chrysanthemum jelly on the counter (From a previous trip to an Asian shop) and some coconut. The coconut juice was mostly finished, but there was still that yummy flesh on the inside. I scooped it out and cut it up. I did the same with the jelly, and put them aside to go in the tea. I also put aside at ton of other stuff, like pandan flavouring and vanilla essence and colouring. To be honest, they didn't add much, but the point of making bubble tea is to experiment, invent and enjoy doing it.

I served the tea in old jam jars with straws (Too small!!) and put some teaspoons on the table. 

The tea was quite yummy, nice, not out of this world, but tasty and interesting. I'd make it again for sure. We still have dried boba in the cupboard. I'm thinking of making some tonight.

Interesting fact: Bubble tea isn't called bubble tea because of the boba; it is named after the froth that develops on top after shaking it.