Jasmine Milk Tea: Hot + Iced Boba Tea Recipe

Here’s a boba tea with the scent of jasmine flowers to rival those bubble tea shops. This scented tea makes for a delicious drink, brimming with tapioca balls, fragrant jasmine, and powerful antioxidants to fight free radicals. You’ll love this delicious jasmine milk tea recipe with its sweet and soothing taste!

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Why You’ll Love This Recipe

• Healthy: The health benefits of jasmine green tea are well-documented. This nurturing tea is the healthiest way to create your boba base.
• Delicious: The floral taste of jasmine tea is so delicate, making it a perfect match for bubble tea lovers. 
• Hot or cold: Whether you want to drink jasmine milk tea hot or cold and refreshing, this recipe shows you how to make it to suit your tastes.
• Easy: Once you see how simple it is to make jasmine boba tea, you won’t need to drive around looking for bubble tea shops anymore.

About Jasmine Milk Tea

Like all boba tea, jasmine milk tea comes from Taiwan. Taiwan is considered the birthplace of bubble tea drinks. You can’t go anywhere there without coming across scores of boba tea shops at every turn. Check out this Classic Milk Tea Recipe to learn more about it’s history.

Jasmine milk tea is made with a fragrant jasmine tea base, milk, and chewy tapioca pearls. This is a common offering on boba shop menus, but with this recipe, you’ll see how easy it is to make it at home. 

What Does It Taste Like?

Jasmine blossoms and green tea give jasmine milk tea a unique taste. It’s pleasantly floral yet sweet. This drink has delicate undertones and hints of perfume. With the addition of plant-based milk, it’s silky, creamy, and smooth, along with a nutty flavor from the tapioca pearls that give a chewy contrast in texture at the bottom. 

Nutrition

Jasmine tea is packed with polyphenols, which act as antioxidants in the human body. A review of five meta-analyses found that individuals who drank at least 3 cups of black or green tea per day had a 21% lower risk of heart disease [1].

When it comes to potential mental health impact, an animal study found that jasmine tea extract improves depression-like behavior and prevents depression via the microbiota-gut-brain axis in rats [2].

Ingredients + Notes

Why drive around looking for a bubble tea shop? You can make jasmine milk tea in no time at all in your own kitchen without any artificial ingredients or added sugar. 

• Tapioca Pearls: Tapioca pearls or boba are subtle and sweet, the only way to make a true bubble tea. These are nice and chewy, and you won’t believe how easy they are to make for your drink, too!
• Jasmine Green Tea: I use loose-leaf jasmine green tea, and I’ll tell you why. It’s the best quality and more affordable when you think about it, too. If you buy jasmine tea bags, those will work too. Unfortunately, the plastic tea satchels release microplastics into the tea. You might think that getting jasmine tea in the paper tea bags is better, but these are coated in chemicals. For the purest experience and highest quality, get loose-leaf tea.

A full list of ingredients with exact amounts can be found in the recipe card below.

Recipe Variations

What should you do if you don’t have one of the listed ingredients? There are ways to make changes to create an equally delicious milk tea. If you’re wondering about an ingredient you have and if it can work, here’s what to know. 

• Sweeteners: If you don’t want to use cane sugar, you can use the sweetener of your choice. Alternatively, you can use agave, homemade simple syrup, maple syrup, or brown sugar.
• Milk: Instead of oat milk, you could use coconut milk, rice milk, almond milk, or soy milk.
• Tea: Can’t find jasmine tea? You can use green tea or black tea when you make this recipe. The only thing is that a different tea will give this a completely different flavor profile. Jasmine tea has a delicate floral flavor that you don’t get from other tea types. It will still be delicious, but it won’t be the same. 
• Tea Bags: Be careful when you use tea bags, as many of them include chemicals. That said, there are a few options that are safer, though loose-leaf tea styles are always the best option. 
  Grass Jelly: You can use grass jelly in place of tapioca pearls. This will have a similar texture but add a slightly fruity note to your boba tea. 

How To Make Jasmine Milk Tea

There are a few steps to making iced jasmine milk tea, but they will go by quickly. Once you make it, you’ll see just how simple it is. It’s faster than going to a boba shop and ordering!

1. Make The Boba: Pour two cups of water into a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Add tapioca pearls into the saucepan and boil for five minutes (until the pearls start floating to the top). (If you don’t have quick-cooking tapioca pearls, follow your package directions.) Scoop floating pearls into a metal mesh strainer and rinse with cool water. 

2. Make The Tea: Heat water in a teapot or electric tea kettle to 175°F or 79°C. Add loose-leaf tea to a tea infuser and place it in a mug. Pour heated water over the tea and let it steep for 4 minutes. Remove the tea. Pour in the maple syrup and stir thoroughly. 

3. Assemble The Boba Tea: Scoop tapioca pearls into a serving glass. Add ice on top of the boba. Pour oat milk in next, followed by freshly brewed jasmine tea. Stir and enjoy your jasmine bubble tea with a reusable clear glass bubble tea straw.

Storage Tips

Jasmine milk tea is incredibly soothing and delicious. You may surprise yourself, though, if you make extra and realize you can’t drink it all. To store it, make sure you take the boba pearls out. These can become hard when refrigerated and lose their chewy texture. The tea itself, without the pearls, is best kept in the fridge. 

• Fridge: If you remove the tapioca balls, your jasmine milk tea can keep in the fridge for up to 2 days. This is why it’s wise to only prepare enough boba pearls for your drink. Trying to keep them will only mean they go to waste. For more details, check out How Long Does Milk Tea Last In The Fridge?
• Freeze: I definitely advise against freezing this recipe. The tapioca pearls and the plant-based milk don’t keep well this way. Besides, it’s easy enough to make fresh when you want it. 
• Meal Prep: It’s not good to get the chewy boba ready too far ahead of when you want them. But you can prepare your jasmine milk boba tea for guests or your family slightly in advance. Don’t do it more than 24 hours before – 12 hours is the sweet spot. You can let the tea steep first and have that ready to go with ease for a speedier prep time. 

Hot Boba Tea Recipe Instructions

To make the hot version of this jasmine boba, you skip the ice and heat the milk. Here are step-by-step instructions to make things easier.

1. Make The Boba: Pour two cups of water into a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Add tapioca pearls into the saucepan and boil for five minutes (until the pearls start floating to the top). (If you don’t have quick-cooking tapioca pearls, follow your package directions.) Scoop floating pearls into a metal mesh strainer to remove excess water.
2. Make The Tea: Heat water in a teapot or electric tea kettle to 175°F or 79°C. Add loose-leaf tea to a tea infuser and place it in a mug. Pour heated water over the tea and let it steep for 4 minutes. Remove the tea. Next, stir in sugar. 
3. Prepare The Milk: Pour milk into a hot-safe mug or glass and microwave for about 60 seconds (until hot).
4. Assemble The Bubble Tea: Scoop tapioca pearls into a serving glass. Pour oat milk in next, followed by freshly brewed jasmine tea. Stir and enjoy your jasmine bubble tea with a reusable clear glass bubble tea straw.

If you tried this Jasmine Milk Tea Recipe or any other recipe on my blog, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how it went in the 📝 comments below. Thanks for visiting!

Recipe

Reference

[1] Arab, L., Khan, F., & Lam, H. (2013). Tea consumption and cardiovascular disease risk. The American journal of clinical nutrition, 98(6 Suppl), 1651S–1659S. https://doi.org/10.3945/ajcn.113.059345

[2] Zhang, Y., Huang, J., Xiong, Y., Zhang, X., Lin, Y., & Liu, Z. (2021). Jasmine Tea Attenuates Chronic Unpredictable Mild Stress-Induced Depressive-like Behavior in Rats via the Gut-Brain Axis. Nutrients, 14(1), 99. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu14010099