Boba
The namesake of this blog — how to make good boba and what brands to use.
This is still a work in progress! Enjoy this pretty picture and this basic recipe for now.
This is a tricky one because boba quality and preparation instructions are HIGHLY brand dependent. I'll start with some general instructions and then my notes on various brands.
Boba
This should work for most non-instant boba brands. Don't bother with any boba that claims a 5-minute cook time.
Ingredients
- 1 cup uncooked boba (good for 2-3 servings)
- 6 cups water
- ½ cup boba steeping syrup
Directions
- Sift the boba using a spider strainer (or anything that’ll let cracked chunks of boba fall through).
- Basically, you want to get rid of excess starch that’ll make your boba too gooey, and you want to get rid of small pieces of boba since you want your boba to be consistent.
- Boil boba for 35 minutes.
- The recommended ratio is at least 6 cups of water to 1 cup of boba, but if you sift enough, you can probably do 4 cups of water to 1 cup of boba.
- At hot temperatures, boba is a lot softer. What you’re looking for at the end of the boiling period is that the boba is cooked all the way through - it should be soft and chewy from the outside to the inside (no chalky or crunchy parts).
- Turn off the heat and let the boba sit in the cooking water for 30 minutes.
- This just helps the boba absorb more water.
- Rinse the boba using cold water.
- I rinse by dumping out excess water, then filling the pot with water, stirring around, and straining. I do this a couple times. You basically want to rinse off excess starch from the boba so that it’s not too slimy on the outside.
- Steep the boba in syrup (see the syrup guide) for at least 30 minutes. Give the boba a stir to make sure that it doesn't stick together.
- You can let the boba sit for about two hours before the texture starts getting worse.
Boba brands
My top brand is Fanale, but the downside is that you can only order cases of 40 pounds.
My other favorite is from Nuts.com, but their boba is absurdly expensive for how much you get. I think these two brands win out because they're consistently chewy, don't taste super artificial, and are fairly big. In the packages that I've gotten, they also haven't crumbled much.