Eureka! Black Tapioca Pearls

The proliferation of bubble milk tea places in the Philippines is pretty undeniable.
Bubble Tea, otherwise known as pearl milk tea or boba milk tea, originated from Taiwan. They are basically tea-based drinks mixed with milk and/or fruits, and usually have chewy tapioca balls commonly known as 'pearls'.

If my memory serves me right, my very first bubble tea experience was 2 years ago - a caramel milk tea from  Bubbatealicious in Divisoria Mall.

I'm a sucker for caramel, btw. :))

Anyway, one evening last summer, I craved for milk tea. I don't know how or why, but it felt like my throat was thirsty for a creamy tea. So I promised to get myself a milk tea first thing in the morning. I was so excited that I wasn't even able to sleep. The moment my sister woke up, I asked her to accompany me. And so she did. I have said before that Divisoria have almost everything. The market was no more than a 10-minute walk from our home. When we arrived at the market, I immediately looked for black pearls, but no luck. We bought clear tapioca pearls then, and tried to "improvise". We didn't go home empty-handed not because we bought clear pearls, but because we were so amused; we bought almost everything we wanted to eat but had to buy - like french fries, flavored shakes, chips, and cheese sticks. Haha. My mom was SO SURPRISED when we got home. She didn't expect us to be out for too long, but we were gone for over 2 hours. And we brought home a lot of things, we even had an ice chest for the shaved ice, when we got home.

Anyway, my improvised black pearl wasn't all that bad. We had it for a couple days, til we got tired.

Then came my DAD'S BLACK PEARL OBSESSION!
Why obsession if you may ask? He kept buying pearl milk teas and pearl shakes after we had him taste one from Happy Lemon.
His preference? Whatever the flavor is, as long as it has 0% sweetness, and THREE TIMES pearl add-ons for an order.
And for the record: HE'S VERY MUCH A WATER PERSON -- before his obsession at least. :))

We all got addicted to the point that my dad asked me to look for black pearls in Divisoria. I told him my "black pearl story", and said it's impossible for Divisoria not to have black pearls. I even told him I BELIEVED that, too. Haha.
And since my dad is a "pusher", I searched wider, until I found one in Divisoria Mall.
Haha.

Our search is finally oveeerrrrr! ;D

P70 for 1kl black tapioca pearl

Uncooked black pearls must be handled with care because they tend to pulverize easily.

And if you plan to buy:

* I suggest you buy the vacuum-sealed ones to keep their shape.

* And you need to transfer the pearls gently to another container to let them breathe.

No, they're not alive. :))

But they do need air to get separated.

I didn't do it my first time so almost half of it went to trash.

Some pearls got stuck together and didn't get cooked.

They are hard to separate once they're already in the water.

* Also, follow the cooking instructions on the case, especially the draining part.

We had one incident where my sister forgot to drain the pearls after 30 mins. And the next thing we knew, the pearls sucked in some water already, so they lost their chewiness.

Btw, they also sell milk tea flavor powders for P85 per 500g pack.