Real (Fresh) Taro Milk Tea | Boba Tea Series

We love Taro milk teas but the number one issue is that most of them are all fake! Let us explain. For convenience, the majority of boba milk tea shops use sweetened powders and syrups, so often that purple color comes from food coloring in the powder. You see, actual taro has a mostly white or pale color flesh with purple specks so how would a taro milk tea get to that commonly seen purple color?

generic taro milk tea — Typical looking Taro Milk Tea

Luckily, taro milk tea doesn’t have to be as scary as it sounds! Taro itself has lots of nutritional benefits. It’s rich in fiber and contains almost twice the amount compared to other taters. Because of that extra fiber, it can help control blood sugar levels and promotes a healthy heart with its high levels of potassium. If you want us to do a WTF is this kind of video let us know in the comments!

And fortunately, making fresh taro milk tea is pretty simple, so that’s why we want to share our rich and flavorful, naturally purple recipe for Fresh Taro milk tea. For our original recipe, we prefer to use milk powder because it gives. us that velvety decadence of milk without the extra water, leaving us with a more potent drink. If you don’t have milk powder available, you may want to brew a stronger tea to compensate for flavor.

Carlienne’s Real Taro Milk Tea Recipe

Materials

Large pot
Strainer
Small Saucepan
Tall glass (or any cup)
Tea equipment (if not using tea bags)

Ingredients

480mL Tea, chilled (we prefer green or oolong)
3-3.5 Tbsp Milk powder*
166mL (4oz) Simple syrup**
100g Taro, cooked
50g Purple potatoes, cooked

*Without Milk Powder

360mL (1 1/4C) Tea, chilled
180mL (3/4C) Milk (can sub with any non-dairy milk)

1:1 milk to tea ratio for a thicker consistency. 1:5 ratio for more tea flavor and watery consistency.

**Sweetness (Simple Syrup) Level Ratios

20% sweet = 35mL
25% sweet = 43.75mL
50% sweet = 87.5mL
75% sweet = 131.25mL

How to Make Taro Milk Tea

Peel, cube and boil taro and purple potatoes until fork tender. Drain taro and potatoes and set aside to cool. For extra color and flavor, you can reserve the cooking water and use it to brew your tea.
Brew & chill tea. Follow your tea’s directions or brew to your preference. General guidelines for loose leaf tea is 3g of tea to 8oz of water.
Make & chill simple syrup. Take equal parts sugar and water and bring to a boil, once it boils set it aside to cool.
When all ingredients have cooled, you can assemble the drink. In a blender, put all the ingredients and pulse 4-6 times. You can adjust blend time to achieve your preferred texture, but don’t over blend as it can turn the texture a bit weird. You can also put extra chunks of taro afterwards for a more chunky texture.
Optionally add other fillings, like boba or egg pudding. Keep in mind that some fillings will also sweeten your drink, so you can adjust your simple syrup levels ahead of time.

What Should I Use for Taro Milk Tea?

A big thank you to our Boba Tea Series sponsor, Zenzu Tea for providing all the delicious teas. While you can use any tea, we recommend using a more mellow flavored tea, like green, slightly floral, like jasmine, or a nuttier earthy one like an oolong. Taro and potato have really mild flavors so you don’t want too strong of a tea to overpower it.

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