The popular beverage known as boba tea, which is often referred to as bubble tea, has recently been the focus of a number of challenges that have been posted on social media. The origin of this drink may be traced back to the country of Taiwan, and it is characterized by the addition of chewy tapioca balls to a cup of tea.
This combination is what gives the tea its name, since it is thought that the tapioca balls resemble bubbles in appearance when combined with the tea. Boba is a highly well-liked beverage, and customers often ask Starbucks whether they stock it in their stores.
On its menu, Starbucks does not provide boba tea as an option. This is as a result of the complicated nature of the drink’s preparation, which requires a procedure that would be prohibitively costly to implement throughout the whole Starbucks network. If you are familiar with the location of tapioca pearls, you may manufacture your own Boba tea at home using Starbucks iced tea.
Tapioca pearls may be found at a variety of grocery shops; however, if your local grocery store does not offer them, you can still get them via other means, such as placing an order on Amazon.com.
Although there are various regional and national tea store chains that do offer boba tea, there are also locally owned establishments that can surprise you with how well they do their job in terms of quality.
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How to Make Boba Tea with Starbucks Drink
You may prepare your own boba in a number of different methods, and the components are not very unusual, which means that you should have no trouble locating them.
Even while they do not sell the tapioca balls that give the drink its name, you may make this process even more convenient for yourself by purchasing the majority of the beverage from a Starbucks location.
If you are limited to simply purchasing tea from Starbucks, and you are interested in ordering boba tea, these are the steps you need to take:
- Get the Starbucks app on your mobile device. Following these procedures will make it much simpler for you to place any orders that are necessary. You won’t have to deal with the social discomfort of interacting directly with a barista, who may not be amused by the shenanigans you pull with your boba tea either.
- Once you have the Starbucks app open, you will want to go to the portion of the menu that is dedicated to iced tea.
- In the part of the Starbucks menu devoted to iced teas, look for the option to choose “Iced Black Tea.” You have free reign on the volume of the beverage.
- You may personalize your beverage by going to the “Add-ons” part of the website that allows you to customize your beverage. This will enable the beverage become more suited for being converted into a fake Boba, which will be an advantage.
- If you are given the choice of how much water to add, choose “none” from the drop-down menu.
- When using this hack, you have the option of using either whole or half-and-half milk; nevertheless, the former option is the more common one.
- Now remove the liquid cane sugar that is generally included with this beverage by going to the “Flavors” section of the beverage customization page and clicking the “Remove” button.
- Toffee Nut Syrup should be used in its place of the liquid sugar made from cane.
- The drink may now be ordered, but before you go and receive it, you will need to get the tapioca pearls ready for consumption. The beverage is now ready to be ordered.
- Bring the tapioca pearls to a boil for the amount of time specified by the instructions provided by the manufacturer of your kind of pearls.
- They are now prepared to be dropped into your beverage in order to create your very own boba tea. You need just go to Starbucks, order your beverage of choice, and then drop in the prepared pearls for the procedure to be considered complete.
Where to Buy Tapioca Pearls
Even while Starbucks may be moving at a snail’s pace in terms of adding boba tea to the menu, there are methods that you may add tapioca pearls of your own to other drinks in order to capture some of the spirit of the beverage.
- Tapioca Pearls on Amazon
- Tapioca Pearls on Walmart
Tapioca pearls may be found in the bulk food section of most major supermarket chains, including Safeway, Giant, and even Walmart. You may even go online to the retail and online delivery behemoth Amazon and place an order for some to be delivered to your house if your neighborhood grocery shop is out of stock.
It is quite probable that more and more grocery shops will start stocking the essential components to make Boba tea as its popularity increases. This would allow the businesses to better serve their consumers.
Why Doesn’t Starbucks offer Boba
It is surprising that Starbucks does not sell boba tea given how famous it is, not just for its flavor but also for its role in several viral social media pranks.
It seems to reason that it would be a significant boost to their overall income, doesn’t it? Sadly, it does not seem to be the case.
Making Boba tea on a commercial scale involves expensive equipment and extensive training, neither of which is likely to be cost efficient.
This specialized equipment would also take up space that might be utilized for the preparation of a larger variety of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks.
It would also be fairly cumbersome to store the tapioca pearls since they are only used for the preparation of boba tea. This, of course, is unless Starbucks continues to experiment with them and makes a beverage that is a Frankenstein creature.
It would be more efficient to keep materials that have a wider range of applications in this area of the warehouse.
There is also the possibility that the scope of the Starbucks brand does not include boba tea, which is another reason why it is not offered.
Even though the firm no longer focuses only on coffee sales, it is still generally regarded as the most reliable supplier of high-quality coffee.
It is possible that the addition of such a famous beverage that is not coffee may damage the Starbucks brand identification, which is something that higher-ups at the corporation would prefer to prevent happening.
Alternative Places to Buy Boba Tea
While Starbucks has chosen not to get on the boba tea bandwagon, a large number of other companies have either included the beverage on their menu or are centered on the beverage itself.
Kokee Tea is one of these locations; however, this chain is only found on the East Coast of the United States, therefore it cannot be considered a national chain.
Nevertheless, it serves as an example of a tea chain that stocks a significant quantity of the components required to make boba tea. There are further instances, such as the beverage known as Kung Fu Tea.
Because this brand now has locations all over the country, you won’t need to buy a plane ticket to satisfy your need for boba tea.
You might also look at tea stores that are run by local people. It’s possible that these places may even surprise you by stocking boba tea with attributes that are superior to those offered in chain tea stores.
Tea shops that are run by families are a smart choice since there is a possibility that the quality will be greater, and because there are advantages to be gained from supporting a local company.