Boba tea is all about flavour and fun. Not long ago, boba usually came in standard flavours. But, not anymore. Even if we try, we wouldn’t be able to count all boba flavours. What we can do is offer you one more – brownie chocolate boba. This recipe is for all choco lovers that love the traditional black tea boba but want to add a chocolate touch.
Ingredients for making Brownie Boba
Black tea leaves
The best black teas for this bubble tea are teas with natural chocolaty flavour, such as Chinese Dian Hong or Indian Assam tea with less maltiness and more chocolaty notes. To bring out a slightly toasty note, dry roast them before steeping for a couple of seconds using a clean preheated saucepan.
Milky ingredients
For this recipe, you’ll need regular whole milk and condensed milk. Whole milk is used to make the bottom layer. You can replace it with semi-skimmed milk. If you want to replace sweet, condensed milk, you can use either evaporated milk (less sweetness) or single/double cream.
Cocoa powder
Since cocoa is a main flavour in this boba tea, choose only high-quality cocoa powder. But instead of adding cocoa directly to tea, a much better way is to make chocolate syrup instead. This syrup is much lighter than the classic syrup. It contains more milk and a bit of butter.
Boba pearls
Boba pearls are what makes boba tea a boba tea. They are mad from tapioca starch and sugar and readily available. The most classical flavour is black sugar flavour that goes well with almost any milky boba tea. Alternatively, you can make your own boba pearls at home.
Sugar
You’ll need sugar for both chocolate syrup and for making brown sugar syrup. The best one? Brown sugar! Brown sugar has a unique caramel touch, and it’s perfect for making bubble teas. Both light brown or dark brown sugar will work. However, if you want to get as close to the traditional flavour, use dark muscovado sugar or soft dark sugar.
Homemade Brownie Chocolate Boba
Equipment
- small saucepan (for making sugar syrup, cooking boba pearls and making chocolate syrup)
- Flat saucepan
- Kettle
- Serving glass
Ingredients
For the bottom chocolate layer:
- 80 ml milk
- 1 teaspoon butter
- 3 teaspoon brown sugar
- 4 teaspoons cocoa powder
For milk tea:
- 220 ml water
- 1 heaped teaspoon roasted Dian Hong tea
- 1 tablespoon condensed milk
- 30 grams black sugar boba pearls
- Ice
For sugar syrup
- 4 tablespoon brown sugar
- 50 ml water
Instructions
- Combine 4 heaped tablespoons of brown sugar and 50 ml of water in a small saucepan. Bring it to a boil over medium heat and stir gently until sugar dissolves. Reduce the heat to low and let it simmer for3-4 minutes.
- Cook boba pearls per instruction on the packaging and coat them in sugar syrup. You don’t need to use all syrup, just enough to cover all pearls.
- Add milk, sugar and sifted cocoa powder into a small saucepan. Simmer over low heat until it thickens. While simmering, stir using a spoon or a whisk until smooth. Turn off the heat, add butter and stir.
- Preheat a flat saucepan, add tea leaves and dry roast them for 5-10 seconds on medium heat until fragrant.
- Bring water to a boil and steep 1 heaped teaspoon of dry roasted tea leaves in 220 ml of water for about 3 minutes.
- Pour chocolate syrup into a serving glass.
- Add syrup coated boba pearls.
- Add ice cubes.
- Gently pour tea over ice cubes.
- Add 1-2 tablespoons of condensed milk and serve.