On Friday night we made "bubble tea" for Family Night. I have to admit, I wasn't too sure how to go about it, but I was sure that I wanted it to be delicious and a memorable experience. I'm not sure it was either, but this is how it went:
We got out the beautiful parfait cups that were passed on down from my mom. I remember my mom making granola parfaits and the occasional ice cream treat in these glasses. I thought they were so elegant and special that they always gave me a thrill. So I thought it would be the perfect time to pull them out of the cupboard and give them a whirl with my own kids.
Bubble tea is essentially an iced latte made with tea instead of coffee, and with pearl tapioca mixed in. Well, we were out of drinking water. One strange little glitch of living in the country with well water that isn't potable, is that sometimes if I forget to fill up the jugs at the grocery store, we run out of drinking water. So we were coasting through Friday evening with milk alone. Turns out, it made things better - the drink was much more rich.
We started by boiling rainbow tapioca. I found out that when you stir the tapioca with a whisk, they get stuck inside. And they stick like glue. Next I found out that if you shake that whisk for all it's worth to get the tapioca out, the tapioca will fly and stick to the ceiling. As I said, they stick like glue.
Getting the tapioca to boil and then set takes about an hour total, so in the meantime we made our tea drink. I took green tea with a berry flavor, and some brown sugar, and put them both in milk which I set to boil. The tea steeped right in the milk, and the sugar made it all sweet. It was really really yummy! We all loved this part.
Well, we had to wait forever and a day for the tapioca to be ready. I finally got it ready after about an hour of waiting, and then we mixed it all together with some ice, and had ourselves a little bit of a party while we watched some cartoon thingy - kids' choice!
Truth be told, the milk mixture was awesome. The berries with brown sugar with milk was delicious. But the tapioca….not so much. They were icky and squishy on the outside, and crunchy on the inside. Evidently those babies were too big to cook in an hour. Claire enjoyed playing with them, but that was about the most milage we got out of them. So we pitched the tapioca. Next time I'll try smaller tapioca. Still, it was an experience, and it was fun to try.
Cheers!
