If you know me at all well, you’ll know I love tea. No, let me rephrase that. I adore tea.
Make that: hot, black {British blend}, milky tea. An entire pot of it!
I also happen to be quite partial to chai and earl gray.
Yes, indeed…tea + me = one happy girl!
I’m {only mildly} embarrassed to admit that the 2nd intelligible word out of Bug’s little mouth in the morning is “tea!”. The first is “mommy” or “daddy”. Occasionally it’s “tootie”. He’s a boy, what more can I say?
I digress.
Seeing I’m ridiculously behind in posting a recipe, I figured I’d share this fun way my daughter and I prepare our tea on occasion. It’s called Bubble Tea. And it’s just all sorts of fabulous.
What makes this beverage considerably more exciting than our “average” cup of tea {which, all on it’s lonesome, rocks my face off with regularity}, is the little ‘bubbles’ you suck up randomly through a whopping straw. Apart from the occasional, and sudden, esophageal blockage, it’s quite delightful! Suck carefully.
You can pick these babies up at most oriental markets for a few bucks. We purchased a few different colors of tapioca pearls {which essentially is what the ‘bubbles’ are} along with the gigantic straws. Completely necessary gigantic straws, that is.
To prepare, simply cook the tapioca according to the directions on the package (which, if not in decipherable English, will resemble something like this: bring water to a boil (6:1 ratio, water to tapioca), pour in tapioca and gently stir, once plump and at a rolling boil, drop to medium and cook for 5 minutes with the lid on). Our bubbles (some were tapioca, some were sago) were 5 minute quick cookers.
Once cooked, drain and either plop directly into your tea cup {or mouth}…or, to jazz them up, soak them in a simple syrup first.
I prepare my syrup using equal parts boiling water and brown sugar, and then spice it up with a few dashes of cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves – perfect if you’re using your bubbles in chai!
Let them sit for a few minutes (15-20) and then scoop a few spoonfuls out, leaving most of the syrup behind. Plop into your favorite steamy drink, squirt some cream on top and sprinkle a little cinnamon on for good measure. Voila!
You can serve bubbles in any beverage…tea, coffee, juice or smoothies. Okay, maybe not any beverage. To bubblify a glass of moscato would be horribly sacrilegious, no?
But then again, the concept of slurping large chewy bubbles through a massive straw perched in your tea cup isn’t exactly a conventional one, now is it?
{But it is most certainly a delicious one. Enjoy!}
