How to Make Boba from Scratch (aka Tapioca Pearls) for Bubble Tea (2024)

Chewy and sweet boba is such a treat whenever I drink jasmine milk tea or any other bubble tea. After years of buying premade boba, I finally have a recipe to make boba at home anytime I feel a craving coming on. With just three ingredients, dark brown sugar, water, and tapioca starch, you can learn how to make boba too!

Why make homemade boba?

While I’ve been to plenty of boba cafes in the past 20 years, I’ve found it’s pretty rare to find homemade boba from scratch at these cafes. Recently, OneZo (shops in California, New York and Massachusetts) made headlines making their boba in-store and I started to research making boba at home because I wanted to know exactly what I was consuming.

After buying about 13 varieties of premade boba from different stores and online boba shops online, I saw that many of these boba pearls were made with many types of ingredients that I didn’t recognize. While I was researching how to make boba from scratch, I’ve found that most boba is made by a few ingredients: tapioca starch, dark brown sugar, and water.

The best tapioca pearl / boba brands

Making boba from home can be quite a challenge so I wanted to offer you another option–buying premade pearls. If you want to make boba milk tea using premade boba, you can buy various brands online and in stores.

But please be warned, many people seem to have difficulty cooking premade boba even when they come with instructions. I bought 13 different varieties to help people troubleshoot these cooking issues, and the methods to cooking can vary greatly from brand, and type within a brand, but in the end if you’re willing to experiment and retry, it’s much easier than trying to make your own boba.

These brands below are four of 13 I tested and these stood out from the pack as the best because of the quick cooking time and better final results. Here is a list of brands I recommend:

• WuFuYuan 5 minute brown boba
• WuFuYuan 3 Minute White Sago
• TeaZone Chewy Tapioca Pearls (sold & owned by Lollicup)
• Bossen White Tapioca Pearls

To cook these different types of boba, you can refer to our previous How to Cook White Tapioca Pearls and How to Cook Tapioca Pearls posts. I also list our why I prefer these specific brands and types on these posts for the boba above.

Why making your own boba can be difficult

When I first attempted this, I honestly thought this would be an easy process; This mindset quickly went out the window after my second time trying to make my pearls. It’s worth mentioning that this can be a tricky process because working with tapioca starch is a sticky situation.

While working with this recipe, I dealt with timing and texture issues with my dough. With my dough going from being too sticky and wet to being too dry. After several rounds of testing, I finally found a recipe that works. I’ve also listed some tips below to help you get chewy and sweet boba.

How to make tapioca pearls (step by step)

Step 1. In a saucepan over medium heat, combine the dark brown sugar and water. Stir until the liquid warms up and the sugar dissolves. This takes about 45 seconds.

Step 2. Remove the pan from the heat and add two tablespoons as you constantly mix to make sure its even. This should happen in under five seconds.

Step 3. Add the rest of the tapioca starch in your pan and mix thoroughly. You want to make sure you get all the tapioca starch incorporated into the thick mixture. It may get a little tiring stirring so much, but it’s worth it! This should give you a thick and sticky consistency of dough. It should take about one minute total.

Step 4. Sprinkle tapioca starch over your cutting board or pastry board. Transfer the dough onto the surface, adding a little more tapioca starch on top of the dough.

Step 5. Carefully begin to knead your dough and sprinkle in more tapioca starch if it’s still too sticky. I like to knead for about two minutes. Test your dough by pulling it apart and if it snaps or breaks in the middle then it’s ready. It should also be smooth.

Step 6. Cut your dough in quarters and place three sections in cling wrap to prevent it from drying out. With one quarter, roll it into a log with about a ¼ of a quarter diameter.

Step 7. Then cut the log into about ¼ of a quarter pieces. Take one piece and roll in between your palms to make a small ball. (Note, the boba will expand in the boiling water as it cooks)

Step 8. Sprinkle some tapioca starch into a tray or bowl and place your boba balls in there to prevent them from sticking. Repeat with the rest of the dough.

Step 7. After you’ve finished rolling all your balls, place them in a strainer and remove the excess starch.

Step 8. Boil about 10 cups of water in a large pot and then add about ½ cup of boba into the pot. Wait for the boba to float, then cook on medium heat for about 20 minutes, uncovered. Note: after putting my boba in the boiling water, I noticed they changed their shape similar to raisins. But after boiling for 20 minutes, they rounded out again.

Step 9. Remove the pot from the stove, and then cover with a lid and rest for another 20 minutes.

Step 10. Strain the boba from the water and run them under cold water to remove the excess starchy layer and stop the cooking process and use these pearls as soon as possible.

Step 11 (optional). If you want to further sweeten the boba, you can add the boba and two tablespoons of dark brown sugar (or honey) in a bowl and leave it to marinate for ten minutes. Serve your boba with jasmine milk tea or thai tea. Again try to serve and eat these pearls as soon as you can.

Tips to ensure better results

• You need to use tapioca starch/flour. These are the same thing, but you definitely cannot substitute cornstarch for tapioca starch. The boba will not form properly.
• Heat it up: when heating up your water and dark brown sugar, make sure the liquid gets heated enough so that the tapioca starch can dissolve.
• When you move the sugar water and starch mixture back onto the stove, you need to move fast! Constantly stir the liquid and the instant that you start to see thickening at the bottom of the pan, remove it before it gets too sticky.
• Knead your dough! I witnessed some videos where people posted their boba fails because they thought their dough was too dry, but it was only because they didn’t knead their dough enough to incorporate the ingredients.
• Don’t over knead though! While kneading, the dough should be warm to the touch. Stop kneading before it gets too cold and dry. Too dry dough will begin to crack. If you pull your dough apart quickly, it should snap in the middle. This is when you should stop kneading and start making your round balls.
• Keep all the dough under cling wrap to prevent it from drying out before you roll it out into balls.
• Use more tapioca starch to cover the finished balls to prevent them from sticking together.
• Drying boba will give you a better round shape. While you can cook your boba immediately, I found that drying them out for about two hours will help them keep their super round shape. If you cook them immediately, they do resemble raisins once you put them in the boiling water, but they round out a bit while cooking. Note: the shapes aren’t perfectly round, but the shape doesn’t change the flavor.

Can I make tapioca pearls with cornstarch?

It is really important to use tapioca starch when making boba or tapioca pearls because you need the sticky and chewy nature of tapioca starch in your dough. Cornstarch does not have the same properties to give you this same texture.

You can find tapioca starch in various Asian grocery stores or even in grocery stores. I have seen Bob’s Red Mill Tapioca Starch available online and in-stores. Please note, in America, tapioca starch and tapioca flour are one in the same.

How do you keep Boba chewy?

You should consume boba as soon as you make it to get the perfect texture, or at least four hours within cooking them for the best texture. To keep boba chewy, you can submerge them in a sweet, room temperature liquid until you add them in your drink. Once you put them in the fridge, they begin to harden.