Thai Milk Bubble Tea & Iced

Thai Milk Tea & Iced Tea

 

 

"Thai drink" is a common name used for the beverages in Thailand. The tea is known for its orange color that comes naturally from the brewed tea leaves. Some add food colorings into the beverage to enhance the color further, but the ingredients given here will not include those.

 

This guide will cover the Thai Milk Tea and the Thai Iced for bubble tea, with the ingredients for each of the combinations to make for yourself. The thing that makes this drink what it is is the loose tea leaves used to make it.

In another post I cover how to make thai iced tea using a mix to whip it together in less than a minute. Thai iced tea is really simple to make, except for the brewing or steeping of the loose tea leaves. If you are not using the mix, it will require a tea infuser if you want to do it right.

The common sweet taste of Thai tea comes from the added syrup or sugar, which depends on how you use when making it. The boba pearls also have to be considered, especially if they have been mixed with sugars after cooking. 

Check out the "making the perfect tapioca pearls" post here if you need help on how to cook tapioca pearls.

Thai Milk Bubble Tea

To make a Thai Milk Tea, you will need milk tea and the tea flavoring created from Thai tea leaves. Check the "how to make milk tea" guide if you need to for the milk tea mix, and I have the tea leaves here to purchase:

Once you have the leaves, they will have to be steeped with a tea infuser to extract the tea from the leaves. The steeping time should be 3 - 5 minutes with temperatures between 150 degrees, 190 degrees. Please check the tea section for additional information if you need help steeping.

Once you have your Thai tea, it will need to be mixed with your milk tea or regular milk if you want it to be a milk tea. Half milk and half tea.

Whole Milk is preferred, but coconut or almond milk can be used as well. This will create your Thai Milk Tea.

Thai drinks are normally sweetened with sugar, so add it as necessary (a teaspoon at a time until it is to your liking).

 

This is it for the milk tea portion if that is all you were trying to make.

 

Now to make it a Bubble Tea, you will need to cook some tapioca pearls! The pearls should be placed into the cup first before adding the liquids, once they are ready, to avoid spillage. Check the tapioca pearls section to grab some boba and learn how to cook them. For additional help, check the "making the perfect tapioca pearls" guide, so you make them right the first time.

 

With your boba pearls, milk/milk tea and thai tea, the Thai Bubble Tea is formed.

 

Thai Iced Bubble Tea

 

Finally, if you want the beverage to be iced, then add some ice to make it an iced tea. Place your boba pearls into the cup or glass first, fill it with a lot of ice cubes, then mix in your other ingredients as normal for making the Thai flavor and the milk tea by stirring.

The temperature of the brewed tea should be noted, as this could melt your ice faster and dilute your thai drink, which means more flavor from steeping the tea leaves for a longer period of time, might be required. Also, adding more sugar to the tea may be required to sweeten it, or else the tea may no longer be sweet enough.