Have you ever had bubble tea? Do you wonder where the bubbles also known as ‘boba’ in the drink come from? How they are made? While ordering a bubble tea, you might be amazed by the variety of toppings like boba pearls, popping boba, lychee jelly, etc. This drink of the Millenials is broken down to its roots in the article below.
All bubble teas are essentially comprised of three things- bubbles (Duh!), flavoured tea, and milk. The beautiful bubbles are small and squishy. One type of these translucent artifacts called black pearl boba is made by using tapioca flour. Tapioca flour along with water and brown sugar at the correct temperature gives rise to the boba in bubble tea. The white tapioca pearls are cooked in water with sugar to give the glossy black pearls.
Can this tapioca flour be replaced with other flours? The reason for the exclusive use of tapioca flour is that it contains only starch, whereas others like wheat flour contain other components like protein and fiber. Starch as most of you know is several glucose units joined together. On mixing with cold water a suspension is formed. When this suspension is heated, the particles swell and eventually break down. These then form a 3-D network that can hold water, otherwise known as gelatinization, later giving the classic black boba.
Is this the only method? Popping boba came up a few years later and changed the game. This popping boba is not only being used for bubble teas but also in frozen yogurts and others as toppings. The key to popping boba lies in the seaweed extract used. Popping boba is made using fruit juice, water, sugar, calcium lactate, seaweed extract, potassium sorbate, malic acid, colors, and flavors. The seaweed extract forms the outer shell of the boba.
The fruit juice containing no calcium is mixed with sodium alginate (seaweed extract) and then dripped into a solution of calcium chloride. The drops of the juice form a sphere. As soon as a sphere is formed, the alginate wraps up the sphere by forming a skin around it. This boba are then removed from the solution, washed, and stored for further use.
Moving ahead to ‘glass jelly’, it is made from grass specifically ‘Platostoma palustre’. After sun drying, the plant is boiled in a solution of baking powder. This solution releases the pectin in the plant. Pectin is another polymer involved in gelation.
Lychee coconut jelly is made by the bacterial fermentation of coconut water. The lychee just refers to the artificial flavour added. Some bacteria are responsible for the secretion of microbial cellulose. 'Komagataeibacter xylinus' is used for jelly production in this scenario.
Try out the different varieties of boba tea at your place and let me know about the flavours you enjoy because boba is not sticking to just bubble teas anymore. So, are you ready to try the unconventional boba?
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