A bubble tea kit is worth it if you like bubble tea enough to want it on a weeknight and you would rather not buy six separate ingredients, most of which are awkward to find in a British supermarket. What you get is the tea, the tapioca starch to roll your own pearls, ready-made pearls for when you cannot be bothered, and a booklet that has already solved the timings. What you add is milk or juice, ice and sugar. What you do not get is a machine, a gadget or anything to store afterwards, which for a lot of people is the actual selling point.
What is in a bubble tea kit?
Two kits, and the difference is scale and range rather than quality.
Our Bubble Tea Kit, Boba Milk Tea makes four large glasses of Taiwanese style boba milk tea, iced or hot. In the box: loose leaf black tea, tapioca starch for making your own pearls, and ready-made pearls. You add milk, evaporated for the classic, or coconut, oat or soya, plus sugar.
Our Bubble Tea Kit, Black and Green Tea with Fruit Syrups makes about eight large glasses, as milk tea or as fruit tea. In the box: loose leaf black and green tea, tapioca starch, ready-made pearls, and mango and strawberry syrups. You add milk or fruit juice, ice, and sugar to taste.
Both are best made two glasses per batch, which is not a limitation so much as how tapioca behaves: the starch is easier to work with in a slightly larger quantity than one glass needs.
What do you have to add yourself?
Very little, and nothing unusual. Milk or juice, ice and sugar, all of which are probably in the house already.
The one thing worth thinking about in advance is straws. Tapioca pearls need a wide bore straw to come up, and a standard drinking straw will not do it. Asian supermarkets stock fat straws, along with loose black tea and ready-made pearls, so they are easy enough to track down if you want the full effect.
Equipment-wise you need a pan, a sieve or slotted spoon, something to brew tea in, and tall glasses. Nothing else. No shaker, no sealing machine, no special mould for the pearls: they are rolled by hand from the dough.
How much work is it actually?
More than opening a bottle, less than most people fear. The tea takes minutes. The pearls are the time: rolling them by hand is a pleasant, faintly meditative ten minutes, then they boil, and boiling longer than fifteen minutes is what gives you the big, chewy bubbles worth having.
Make the pearls last, so they go into the glass while still warm. That is the single piece of sequencing that separates a good homemade bubble tea from a disappointing one, because a warm pearl in cold tea is exactly the texture contrast you are paying for in a shop.
On an evening when even that is too much, boil the ready-made pearls instead. They are in the box for precisely that reason and they take the make down to little more than brewing and pouring.
What are the honest limitations?
Three, and they are worth knowing before you order rather than after.
- Your pearls will be pale, not black. The kits contain no colouring, so home-made pearls are naturally translucent. You can add food colouring yourself if you want the classic look, using slightly less water so the dough consistency stays right.
- Cooked pearls do not keep. About four hours in the fridge, covered in sugar syrup, honey or agave, and they are genuinely best fresh. This is a make-and-drink-it thing, not a batch-prep thing. The made-up milk tea itself keeps up to a day in the fridge.
- It is a hands-on drink. If what you want is bubble tea with no effort, a kit is not that. It is the ingredients and the method, not a shortcut.
There is also a Thai style version, if you want to widen the range: add two cloves and one star anise per cup to the tea as it brews. The flavour lands very close, though it will not be bright orange, since that colour comes from added colouring.
Who is it actually for?
People who already like bubble tea and have noticed how often they buy it. People who want to control the sweetness themselves, since you are adding the sugar and can stop wherever you like. Anyone dairy-free, because the pearls in our kits are vegan and the milk is your choice: coconut is the richest, and soya, almond, oat, rice and hemp all work, though they are thinner.
It also makes a good gift for a teenager or a student, because it is an activity as much as a drink, and because the kit runs to several glasses rather than one. If you are sending it to someone, you can enter their address as the delivery address at checkout and it will go straight to them.
When the kit runs out, you can carry on: tapioca starch is in the gluten-free section of most supermarkets. Every ingredient is listed on the pack; if you have an allergy question, email hello@sandyleaffarm.com before ordering.
Bubble tea kit FAQs
How many drinks does a bubble tea kit make?
The boba milk tea kit makes four large glasses. The black and green tea kit with fruit syrups makes about eight large glasses, as milk tea or fruit tea.
Do I need any special equipment?
No machine or gadget. A pan, a sieve or slotted spoon, something to brew tea in and tall glasses. Wide straws are worth buying separately if you want the full effect.
Do the kits include ready-made pearls?
Yes, both kits include ready-made pearls alongside the tapioca starch, so you can either roll your own or skip straight to boiling when time is short.
Can I make bubble tea hot as well as iced?
Yes. The steps are essentially the same, you just leave out the ice.
Is a kit good as a gift?
It works well, because it is an activity as much as a drink and makes several glasses. Enter the recipient's address as the delivery address at checkout to send it straight to them.
Fancy making your own from scratch? Have a look at our bubble tea kits.
