Brown Sugar Milk Tea at Home with the TeaJoy Milk Tea Kit

To make brown sugar milk tea with our Milk Tea Kit, pour 300ml of milk or a milk alternative into a glass, stir in one 18g sachet of Brown Sugar Tea Powder until it dissolves, add one 50g sachet of instant tapioca pearls, then top with ice. There is no boiling, cooking or microwaving at any stage, and a milk tea made this way is ready in about 20 seconds.

The Milk Tea Kit makes four drinks: two Classic Milk Tea and two Brown Sugar Milk Tea. Our classic milk tea recipe covers the first pair. This one is for the brown sugar pair: what sets that sachet apart and what to do if two brown sugar teas are not enough.

What goes in one glass

• 300ml of milk or a milk alternative
• 1 sachet (18g) of TeaJoy Brown Sugar Tea Powder (2 in each Milk Tea Kit)
• 1 sachet (50g) of TeaJoy instant tapioca pearls (4 in each kit)
• Ice, enough to top the glass
• 1 jumbo paper straw (4 in each kit)

On the equipment side, the product page lists a cup and a spoon, and that really is all. The pearls are instant, so there is nothing to heat.

How to make it

1. Pour 300ml of milk or milk alternative into your glass.
2. Add one sachet of Brown Sugar Tea Powder and stir until it has dissolved.
3. Add one sachet of instant tapioca pearls, straight from the sachet.
4. Top with ice, put in a jumbo paper straw and serve.

That is the order in the How to use steps on the kit's product page: milk first, powder second, pearls third, ice last. Each sachet is a single portion and the pack says to consume it immediately once opened, so open one powder and one tapioca sachet per drink and use the whole of each.

Our fruit and matcha kits follow the same pattern with their own sachets and, for the fruit drinks, water in place of milk. If you have one of those too, how to make bubble tea at home without special equipment sets out how each one differs. To make it from scratch instead, with brewed tea and cooked pearls, see how to make bubble tea at home: from scratch or in 20 seconds.

Brown sugar or classic: what changes in the sachet

Both powders are instant black tea made up with milk, and both sachets weigh 18g. The difference is in the ingredient list. The classic powder is sugar, instant black tea and silicon dioxide, and nothing else. The brown sugar powder starts from those same three and adds a flavour, glucose, calcium phosphate tribasic and sucralose.

	Classic Tea Powder	Brown Sugar Tea Powder
Sachet	18g	18g
Ingredients	Sugar, instant black tea, silicon dioxide	Sugar, instant black tea, silicon dioxide, flavour, glucose, calcium phosphate tribasic, sucralose
Drinks per Milk Tea Kit	2	2

Bubble tea flavours explained sets the two milk teas beside every other flavour we make, with the base and the boba for each.

Where the brown sugar comes through

Two parts of the glass carry it. The first is the powder: its full name on the product page is Brown Sugar Flavour Black Tea Powder, and it is the only one of the two powders with a flavour in its ingredient list.

The second is the pearls. Our instant tapioca is made from tapioca starch and konjac, and its ingredient list includes maltose, molasses and caramel colouring. In our FAQ we describe the pearls as giving a chewy, sweet, caramel brown sugar taste without needing any additional syrup. So there is no syrup to pour and nothing to cook. The powder and the pearls go in as they come.

Milk or a plant milk

The box says "Just add milk and ice", and the method on the product page reads "milk or milk alternative". Either works with the same sachets and the same 300ml.

The kit itself holds no milk. None of the three ingredient lists in the box names milk or a creamer, and the pack prints "100% Plant Based". That makes the milk you pour the one thing that decides whether your brown sugar milk tea is vegan. Made with a plant milk, it is plant based from the powder to the pearls. Which of our other drinks take milk, and what each pack prints on vegan, gluten free and halal, is in is bubble tea vegan, gluten free and halal.

Making more than two

One Milk Tea Kit gives you two brown sugar milk teas and two classic ones, for £13.49. Two kits make four of each. Brown sugar is a home kit flavour: our commercial Classic Milk Tea Bubble Tea Kit, sold in 10 or 40 drinks for cafés and events, carries classic tea powder only, ten 18g sachets to a box.

If you are stocking up, keep the unopened sachets in a cool, dry place away from the sun, as the pack asks. The sachets are made in Taiwan, and we source our tea from the Taichung region in the west of the island.

Questions people ask

Do the tapioca pearls in brown sugar milk tea need cooking?

Not in our kit. The instant tapioca goes into the glass straight from its 50g sachet, and the method on the kit's product page ends: "No boiling, cooking or microwaving required."

Can I make brown sugar milk tea with a plant milk?

Yes. The method is written for 300ml of milk or milk alternative, and the kit is 100% plant based, so made with a plant milk the whole drink is too.

How many calories are in a brown sugar milk tea from the kit?

18g brown sugar tea powder (67kcal) plus 50g instant tapioca (128kcal) = 195kcal before milk, and how many calories are in bubble tea sets that beside every other TeaJoy can and home kit drink.

Does brown sugar milk tea contain caffeine?

A small amount, from the instant black tea in the powder. The caffeine in every TeaJoy drink is set out product by product in can children drink bubble tea.

Get the Milk Tea Kit

The Milk Tea Kit is £13.49 and makes four drinks, two of them brown sugar. It sits with our Fruit Tea Kit and Matcha Bubble Tea Kit in bubble tea kits for home, or you can go straight to the Milk Tea Kit. Sign up to our emails for 15% off your entire order.