There is this sudden crazy for this drink. I see long queues everywhere for it. My son loves this so I am going to make this myself instead of joining those crazy queue.For this recipe, I am not doing milk tea. I am just doing milk to save me the trouble of preparing milk tea.

Ingredients
Milk tea or Just Milk
500ml milk
2 tea bags
25g light brown sugar
Ice cubes

Tapioca pearls
70ml water
45g brown sugar
110g tapioca starch, plus more for dusting

Braising syrup
240ml water
½ cup brown sugar

Directions
Milk tea:

Add the milk, tea leaves, and sugar into a pot, and heat it up until the milk starts to steam. Let the tea leaves steep in the hot milk for 15-20 minutes, then strain out the tea leaves. When the milk tea is cool enough, transfer it into a jug or bottle, and keep it in the refrigerator until it’s cold

Tapioca pearls:

Sift the tapioca starch and make sure no large lumps remain. Pour the water and sugar into a small pot or saucepan, and bring it to a boil. Stir and make sure all the sugar has melted, turn down the heat to low, and then dump the tapioca starch into the pot all at once. Using a firm spatula, stir the pot until everything is evenly mixed and a sticky brown dough forms. Cook this dough over very low heat for 3-5 minutes, stirring constantly to prevent the bottom from burning.

Scrape the dough out onto a clean work surface, and split it into two or three roughly equal portions. The dough will be a little sticky to start with, but should get easier to handle as it cools slightly. (If it’s still super sticky, knead in a tablespoon or two of fresh tapioca starch.)

Take one of the dough portions, and cover the rest with a cloth or kitchen towel to prevent them from drying out. Then, roll out the piece you have into a long string, roughly ¼-inch thick. Using a bench scraper, cut the string into ¼-inch pieces. Roll each little piece of dough in between the palms of your hands and shape it into little spherical balls. After you roll each ball, dust it in some tapioca starch to prevent it from sticking. Repeat until you’ve rolled out all the dough

Cooking the pearls:

Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add in the tapioca pearls, and keep the water on a rolling boil for 20 minutes until the pearls are cooked through. Stir vigorously in the beginning to prevent the pearls from sticking, but once they start to float, you only need to stir the pot once every few minutes. Once the pearls are cooked, transfer them into a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking process and firm up slightly.

Braising the pearls:

To make the braising syrup, add the water and brown sugar in a small pot, and bring to a boil. Add in the chilled tapioca pearls, and turn the heat down to a slow simmer. Let the pearls braise for 20-25 minutes, until the braising liquid turns thick and syrupy. Keep it warm after it’s done cooking.

Serving:

To serve, tilt the glass or cup at a 45° angle, and place the tapioca pearls close to the lip of the glass, letting them slide down to the base. Repeat this on all sides to get a tiger stripe-like ripple effect, then add the ice cubes and milk tea.As I am just using milk instead of milk tea, follow imstructions to serve as above. I added around half cup of milk and top up with ice. Stir to mix well before drinking. Enjoy!

To store left over Pearls:

Do not keep them in the fridge. They will harden.Boil some more brown sugar syrup or sugar syrup. Make sure all the pearls are covered by the syrup. Keep in room temperature. Do not keep it for more than 3 days. The pearls will not have the same texture as when you first made it.