Finally! I have hit 30 meals from 30 countries before the end of my 30th year alive (just barely!). For my 30th meal I made bubble tea (AKA Boba) from Taiwan. I know, not really a meal, but trust me rolling those little boba pearls out was more work than some of the full meals I’ve made during this adventure so far so I think it counts!
I love getting a bubble tea while I’m out shopping, or meeting up with friends (we even have a little group that tries as many new bubble tea places as we can). I thought it would be a fun one to try myself.
Bubble tea is traditionally a black milk tea with tapioca “pearls” mixed in. You drink it with an extra wide straw so you can sip the pearls with the drink. The milk tea portion is normally just a black tea steeped in milk and often sweetened. I used and London fog black tea for my tea, and sweetened it with some ginger simple syrup that I made for some cocktails earlier this week.
For the pearls, I followed this Joshua Weissman recipe. Essentially you make a dough with tapioca starch, hot water and brown sugar, then quickly roll it into small balls before the dough cools and seizes up. Then you boil these in water until soft and chewy, then coat them in a brown sugar and molasses sauce and there you have it, tapioca boba pearls. You can see in the gallery at the end of the post what they look like before and after cooking.
To serve you just spoon out some pearls and sauce into a glass, top with ice and your milk tea and a boba straw. Then just give a stir and enjoy! This turned out super tasty and just how I wanted flavour wise! The ginger syrup added some sweetness but also a little kick that helped keep if from being too sweet. Only learning moment was the pearls were slightly too big, so sometimes were difficult to get through the straw, but that’s an easy fix for next time.
Well that does it, 30 meals from 30 countries. I can’t believe I got it done! Thank you so much for reading along on this little journey of mine! I think I am going to do some sort of wrap up post or something in the next little while but for now, I accomplished what I set out to do and it feels great! As always the updated map can be found below as well as some other photos.
Thanks again and Happy New Year!
Brandon
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