Easy Brown Sugar Boba

This brown sugar boba recipe calls for 3 simple ingredients to make a delicious cup of bubble tea in the comfort of your home. Loaded with soft and chewy tapioca pearls in a tea-infused brown sugar syrup, this sweet and delightful drink is guaranteed to brighten your day.

What is Brown Sugar Boba?

Brown sugar boba, also known as brown sugar bubble tea or brown sugar milk tea, is a Taiwanese drink that is popular all across the globe for its alluring flavors and eye-catching aesthetic.

Often referred to as Tiger sugar milk tea, this iconic drink is prominent for its tiger stripes formation made by the drizzling of brown sugar syrup that shortly dissolves into the milk to create a wonderful harmony of flavors.

For the recent years, brown sugar milk tea has been my go-to order at bubble tea shops, even surpassing my longtime addiction to regular milk tea.

The caramelized brown sugar adds an incredible depth and sweetness to the fresh milk, resulting in a drink that is outstandingly satisfying to pamper your taste buds.

Although this drink is delicious however, it can get very expensive to consume on a regular basis, and it can also get very time-consuming to wait in the long queues of bubble tea shops.

Luckily enough, making brown sugar bubble tea at home is delightfully simple and makes for a fun activity to share with your loved ones.

How do you make Brown Sugar Boba?

There are many ways to make brown sugar milk tea at home with many methods that involve making the tapioca pearls from scratch.

This recipe however is truly the easiest way of making the drink, as we will be using store-bought tapioca pearls to be cooked down in a tea-infused brown sugar syrup, ensuring to pack each pearl with maximum flavor.

Although this drink is conventionally made with just brown sugar syrup and milk, I found that infusing tea into the syrup results in a much deeper flavor, in which it also helps to balance the sweetness of the syrup.

If you prefer your drink to be caffeine-free however, you can leave out the tea and use water to boil down the syrup instead, and it will be just as delicious!

What do I need to make Brown Sugar Boba?

This bubble tea recipe is incredibly easy to follow along, and only requires 3 simple ingredients from your pantry and a glass of milk to put together. Here are the ingredients you will need:

• Tapioca pearls: this recipe calls for pre-made tapioca pearls which can be found online or in the tea section of Asian grocery stores.
  • Please keep in mind that the cooking time will vary for each, but they will just need to be softened in boiling water for a few minutes to restore their soft & chewy texture.
• Brown sugar: I recommend using dark brown sugar to create a richer caramel flavor in the syrup.
  • If you have any dark muscovado sugar at hand, it makes for a wonderful substitute to create an even bolder flavor.
• Black tea: of any kind. I used orange pekoe tea for mine, but please free to use any kind of loose leaf tea or tea bags to brew your tea before mixing it in with the brown sugar.
  • For a non-caffeinated version, you can use water instead to boil down the syrup.
• Milk: both dairy or non-dairy milk will work well for this recipe, but 2% milk or oat milk will produce the creamiest results.

And that’s it! All the ingredients you’ll need to make your own brown sugar boba at home.

Can you make this drink without the tapioca pearls?

If you prefer the drink without the pearls, you can just make the syrup on its own to add to your glass of milk.

Feel free to also adjust the serving size to cater to your needs. If you are skipping the tapioca pearls, I would recommend reducing the serving size in the recipe card below to make a smaller portion.

The consistency of the syrup is also easily customizable by adjusting the cook time, but please do keep in mind that the syrup will slightly thicken as it cools!

How to serve Brown Sugar Boba

This brown sugar boba recipe is not only simple but very versatile in that there are so many different ways to serve the sweet and chewy tapioca pearls.

Aside from making milk tea, you can also add this to your vanilla ice cream, cake, or any other dessert to add a touch of sweet caramel-flavored boba to take it to the next level.

If you enjoy eating boba as much as I do, I’m sure you’ll be able to find even more creative ways to serve your boba!

I hope you enjoy this easy bubble tea recipe and as always, please feel free to message me on Instagram or leave me a comment below for any questions! Happy boba-making! 💛

Other easy drink recipes you may like:

• Strawberry Matcha Latte
• Taro Milk Tea
• Korean Strawberry Milk
• Brown Sugar Dalgona Milk Tea
• Dalgona Matcha Latte