How to Make Bubble Tea at Home: From Scratch or in 20 Seconds

There are two ways to make bubble tea at home. From scratch, you brew black tea, boil tapioca pearls, cool them in sugar syrup, let the tea cool too, then build the drink with milk and ice. With a TeaJoy home kit, you pour 300ml of water or milk into a glass, stir in one sachet, add one sachet of boba and top with ice. Nothing is boiled, cooked or microwaved, and the drink is ready in about 20 seconds.

We sell the kits, so we have a view, but a full answer to the question covers both. The from-scratch method below is Sous Chef's published recipe, credited to them; the kit method is from our own product pages.

The two methods side by side

What it takes	From scratch (Sous Chef recipe)	TeaJoy home kit
Tea	5g loose black tea or 2 tea bags in 450ml hot water, cooled	One sachet of tea powder, matcha powder or fruit tea syrup
Boba	120g black tapioca pearls, boiled, rested and cooled in syrup	One 50g sachet of instant tapioca or popping boba, as it comes
Liquid	The cooled tea plus 150ml milk, over two glasses	300ml water (fruit tea) or milk or a milk alternative (milk tea, matcha)
Sweetness	50ml sugar syrup, or to taste	In the sachet
Equipment	Pan with a lid, bowl, two glasses, wide straws; a strainer for loose tea, a slotted spoon if you have one	A cup and a spoon; jumbo paper straws in the box
Time	4 to 6 minutes simmering and resting the pearls, then cooling for the pearls and the tea (no total given)	About 20 seconds
Makes	Two glasses	Four drinks a kit
Price	Your own ingredients	£13.49 (Fruit Tea Kit, Milk Tea Kit) or £13.99 (Matcha Bubble Tea Kit)

Making bubble tea from scratch

This is the classic boba tea recipe published by Sous Chef, the online ingredients and cookware shop, on 2 August 2022. It makes two glasses. Quantities and order are theirs; the wording is ours.

What you need

• 5g loose black tea leaves, Assam if you can, or 2 black tea bags
• 450ml hot water
• 150ml milk, or almond milk for a dairy-free version
• 50ml sugar syrup, or to taste, plus a bowl of syrup for the pearls
• 120g black tapioca pearls
• Ice
• Extra wide straws

Cook the pearls

1. Get 2.5 litres of water boiling hard in a pan.
2. Tip in the pearls and let them come up to the surface. Put the lid on and simmer for 2 to 3 minutes, then lift the pan off the heat and leave them 2 to 3 minutes more to soften. Take them a touch softer than you like, because cooling sets them firmer.
3. Lift them into a bowl of syrup and let them cool there, then use them straight away.

Brew the tea and build the drink

1. Brew the tea in the 450ml of hot water, then let it cool; it only needs to get down to lukewarm. Lift out the bags, or pour loose leaves through a strainer.
2. Share the tea between two glasses, pour in the milk, sweeten with syrup to taste and give it a gentle stir.
3. Spoon half the pearls into each glass, draining off the syrup with a slotted spoon if you have one.
4. Add a few ice cubes, put in a wide straw and drink.

Tapioca pearls cooked the traditional way take around 1.5 hours. The pearls in this recipe simmer for 2 to 3 minutes, then rest off the heat and cool in syrup while the tea cools too. The recipe gives no time for the cooling.

Making bubble tea with a TeaJoy kit

Every TeaJoy home kit works the same way, and the table above has the short version: 300ml of liquid, one sachet stirred in, one sachet of boba, then ice. You add the water or milk and the ice; the box holds the rest, including the straws. The Fruit Tea Kit page ends its steps with "No boiling, cooking or brewing required", the Milk Tea Kit and Matcha Kit pages with "No boiling, cooking or microwaving required". The equipment is a cup and a spoon. Each sachet is a single portion: open one syrup or powder and one boba per drink, and use the whole of each. Each fruit tea syrup goes with water, not milk: why fruit bubble tea can curdle milk explains what acid does to dairy milk.

The kit method is written out in full in our recipes. For the fruit teas, and how the three kits differ, see how to make bubble tea at home without special equipment. For the milk teas, how to make classic milk tea covers the classic sachet and our brown sugar milk tea recipe the other.

Where the difference is: the pearls and the tea

In our Milk Tea Kit the pearls are instant tapioca, made from tapioca starch and konjac. They go in straight from the sachet, with no heating or cooking, and give a chewy, sweet caramel brown sugar taste without any added syrup. Our fruit and matcha drinks use popping boba, made with real fruit juice and a shell of xanthan gum that bursts when you bite it. Popping boba vs tapioca pearls sets the two side by side.

In the kits the tea is in the sachet too: the classic tea powder is sugar, instant black tea and silicon dioxide, and the fruit tea syrups are made with fruit juice and a jasmine green tea flavour. We source our tea from the Taichung region in western Taiwan. The sweetness is in the sachet as well, so there is no sugar syrup to add and no tea to cool.

Which one to choose

Go from scratch if you want to choose your own tea, set the sweetness yourself and cook the pearls fresh; it makes two glasses at once. Go for a kit if you want a drink now, or four across a week: every sachet is a single portion, and our products keep for 24 months from production. All three kits are vegan, and all TeaJoy drinks are allergen free, halal and vegan-friendly.

Questions people ask

Can you make bubble tea at home without cooking the tapioca?

Yes. The instant tapioca pearls in our Milk Tea Kit need no heating or cooking and go in straight from the 50g sachet. The popping boba in the fruit and matcha kits is not cooked either.

How long does it take to make bubble tea at home?

With a kit, about 20 seconds: pour, stir, add the boba, add ice. From scratch, the Sous Chef recipe gives the pearls 4 to 6 minutes on and off the heat, then cooling time for the pearls and the tea, which it does not state. Tapioca pearls cooked the traditional way take around 1.5 hours.

Can you use tea bags to make bubble tea?

Yes. The Sous Chef recipe takes 2 black tea bags or 5g of loose black tea, Assam if you can get it, brewed in 450ml of hot water, with the bags taken out once the tea has cooled. Our Milk Tea Kit skips the brewing: the classic tea powder is instant black tea, so it stirs straight into the milk.

Make your first one

All three kits are in bubble tea kits for home: the Fruit Tea Kit and the Milk Tea Kit at £13.49, the Matcha Bubble Tea Kit at £13.99. Orders are dispatched the next day; delivery is £3.95, or free from £25. Sign up to our emails for 15% off your entire order.