This maple chai bubble tea tastes like heaven from a straw! Made with brewed cinnamon-spiced chai tea and almond milk and sweetened with maple syrup, it looks like a milky-tan iced latte with little dark brown bubbles floating in the bottom. The bubbles have a pleasant soft chewy texture–fun to roll around on your tongue! Here’s how to make healthy and vegan homemade bubble tea.
Click here to PIN Maple Chai Bubble Tea!
Have you ever slurped bubble tea?
I’d never even heard of bubble tea until I linked on a random email telling me to make bubble tea at home. Their bubble tea was made with sweetened condensed milk and Lipton tea. Not my cup of tea. 😉
In this healthier bubble tea, the little brown-black bubbles are infused with iron-rich molasses instead of brown sugar. The bubbles settle in layers near the bottom of the cup and you slurp the bubbles through a wide straw, rolling the pearls all over your tongue while sipping the sweet milk tea.
Those curious dark bubbles got me to thinking about a healthier vegan version. For this maple-sweetened vegan bubble tea the the tapioca pearls have natural color and flavor from soaking in molasses syrup.
Like Goldilocks, you decide when the bubbles are “just right.” They need to be soft, not too soft, and chewy but not too chewy.
How to make healthy maple chai bubble tea:
Prepare the bubbles and refrigerate.
Brew tea, stir in milk and sweetener and refrigerate.
When it’s time for a refreshing fun drink, spoon several tablespoons of the dark bubbles in a glass, and the pour milk tea over the bubbles. Drink with a big wide straw!
For sure this homemade maple chai bubble tea is better for you than any you can buy. Brewed with quality chai tea, naturally sweetened with maple syrup, dairy-free with almond milk, and pure tapioca bubbles, also naturally sweetened. I’m fine if this is the only bubble tea I’ll ever sip!
*** I started making healthy bubble tea with Yogi brand Chai Tea, but they stopped selling it. Now I use Numi Golden Chai tea bags or Allegro Tea Organic Indian Chai. (Affiliate links.) Both make delicious vegan bubble tea. Alternatively a good quality black tea makes a tasty healthy bubble tea too.
What’s the deal about bubble tea?
Bubble tea originated in Taiwan and has spread like wildfire to tea and coffee shops. Popular with teenagers, you’ll find it on menus in Asian restaurants and strip mall franchise and mom and pop stores all over the world. Milky black tea with tapioca pearl bubbles is the original bubble tea. Now bubble juices come in just about any flavor you can dream up.
The tapioca bubbles are also known as bobo. Most of those bubbles are sweet potato-based and colored with caramel. You can purchase them already sweetened with sugar and with additives–not real food. Homemade bobo contain just tapioca and molasses.
If you don’t feel like making the bubble part, skip that step. Iced maple sweetened chai tea with almond milk makes a refreshing pick-me-up all on its own, especially on hot summer days!
What is tapioca?
- Tapioca is a starchy edible extracted from a tropical root plant yuca, also known as cassava. You can find tapioca in several forms including tapioca pearls like those used to make bobos for homemade bubble tea. Tapioca starch, aka tapioca flour, is a gluten-free thickener used to thicken the juices in fruit pies. I like it better than flour or cornstarch because the thickened juices run clear, translucent, after baking.
- Tapioca starch also helps the ingredients bind together in these gluten-free Apple Cinnamon Quinoa Muffins.
- A package of tapioca pearls contains a lot more than you need for this recipe. You might want to whip up a batch of Dark Chocolate Tapioca Pudding, my Dad’s favorite.
Straws for Maple Chai Bubble Tea slurping:
- Traditionally, bubble tea is made with large tapioca pearls and you sip it through wider than normal straws, about 1/2-inch.
- You can buy reusable 1/2-inch wide silicone straws through my Amazon affiliate link.
- If you prefer paper, these are wide for slurping bobo and thick smoothies. (Affiliate)
- If you don’t have the straws on hand, you can use spoons to scoop out the tapioca pearls.
*** A 2013 German study warned of dangerous ingredients in pre-made processed bobo pearls. In a 2019 article, Dr. Andrew Weil asks if bubble tea is bad and writes that the unhealthy part is that bobo shop teas contain a lot of sugar and fat. He also reassures us that the German study contained misinformation about processed pearls.
Make it a fabulous week–get in the kitchen and make yourself a refreshing cold beverage!
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Maple Chai Bubble Tea
Ingredients
The bubbles:
- 3 cups water
- ¼ cup small dried tapioca pearls, (not quick cooking)
- ⅓ cup water
- ⅓ cup unsulphured molasses
The Chai Tea:
- 3 cups water
- 4 Chai black tea bags, (see note)
- ½ cup almond milk
- 2 tablespoons to ¼ cup maple syrup, amount depending on your sweet tooth
Instructions
Make the bubbles:
- Bring water and tapioca pearls to a boil, stirring occasionally. When the water boils, reduce the heat and simmer 8 to 10 minutes, again, stirring every few minutes.
- Turn off the heat and let stand, covered, another 8 to 10 minutes.
- Meanwhile, in a saucepan over low flame, mix the water and molasses, stirring to make a brown syrup. Set aside.
- Put the cooked tapioca pearls in a sieve to drain. The liquid will be slightly gelatinous and won’t flow like water, not to worry, just drain most of the liquid off.
- Drop the translucent bubbles into the molasses syrup. On the lowest possible flame, heat the syrup and the bubbles.
- Bite into a few pearls to test doneness. You want your tooth to find them soft, yet with some chewy texture. If you think they need more time to soften, let them barely simmer. If you determine they are perfect, remove from the heat. Either way, in about 15 minutes the little drops will become brown bubbles the color of the molasses syrup.
Brew the tea:
- Bring the water to a boil. Add the tea bags and let steep 15 minutes. The tea should be strong, but not with bitter flavor. Remove the tea bags. When the tea has cooled, add the milk.
- Stir in the lesser amount of maple syrup. Taste. If you prefer your tea sweeter like I do, stir in more maple syrup. Chill until cold.
- To chill the milk tea quickly, use an ice bath: Fill a large bowl with ice and nest the tea container in it. Stir occasionally until cold. This takes about 5 minutes.
To serve:
- Drop 3 tablespoons or more of the brown bubbles in a clear glass. Pour cold milk tea over the bubbles. Serve with straws.
Notes
- I used small pearl tapioca. When the pearls swell they are just small enough to slurp through a regular straw. If you make the bubbles with large tapioca pearls, you’ll need wider straws. Buy them at Asian stores or online.
- After boiling the tapioca, there may be a few pearls left with white in the center–bite into one of those to make sure they are soft, but still chewy. As long as they are soft, they’ll be fine, they will just take more time to soak up color.
- I used Yogi tea Chai Black.
- The bubbles come out brown, but will appear blacker against the milk tea.
- Leftover bubbles grow less toothsome with time but can be kept in the fridge for a batch of tea the next day.
I made this drink with soy milk instead of almond milk and it was delicious! Thanks for sharing! · 2 December, 2015
Love it! Bubble Tea is such a fun treat! · 3 December, 2015