Honeydew Milk Tea in 3 Ways: From Melon, Syrup or Instant Powder

Honeydew milk tea is a mildly sweet drink that will remove your fruity cravings in a few quick sips. It is a popular fruit-based drink in Southeast Asia, and in its popularity has spread thanks to bubble tea stores. To us, it’s a healthy alternative to fizzy sodas, sugar-added juices and some boba drinks. Especially so, when you’re trying to beat the heat.

This fruit-based cooler is great for a boost of energy because honeydew melons are rich in nutrients. We love this fruity boba drink because of its aesthetic green colour, naturally sweet flavour and fragrance.

We fell in love with the iconic honeydew milk tea taste, which is why we created our easy and customisable recipe. We’ve added some easy-to-follow notes so you can modify the ingredients we used to make your drink as sweet and creamy as you'd like. Furthermore, you can also create a vegan version.

Learn how to make honeydew milk tea with our substitution tips, or skip to our recipe below.

Jump to:

• What Is It?
• What Does Honeydew Boba Taste Like?
• Is It Healthy? 
• Honeydew Milk Tea Ingredients
• How to Make Honeydew Milk Tea Using Fresh Fruit
• Using Honeydew Milk Tea Powder
• Using Honey Melon Syrup
• Cooking Tips
• Honeydew Milk Tea Recipe (Honeydew Melon Boba)

What Is It?

Honeydew boba is made of honey melon juice and milk topped with cooked tapioca pearls. If you love taro milk tea, there's a strong chance you'll also love this refreshing drink. 

Although a lot of people will think this is a boba tea drink, honeydew bubble tea usually doesn't contain any tea. We've tried adding tea, but the taste of honeydew tends to overpower the subtle taste of tea. This is very similar to taro-flavoured boba and ube boba. 

The main highlight of our drink is honey melon. This fruit is quite similar to cantaloupe, but it's sweeter and lighter. However, it has a natural green colour and a smooth consistency, making it ideal as a drink base. We know that in some Asian countries, you’ll find this boba drink being sold by street vendors who will call it honeydew milk or melon milk.

What Does Honeydew Boba Taste Like?

Honeydew boba tastes sweet with a slightly floral and fruity flavour. Thanks to the unique blend of melon and milk. there's also a creamy and thick texture.

In addition, the milk adds creaminess and richness to the drink, which complements the sweetness and freshness of the honeydew melon. Moreover, the tapioca pearls introduce a chewiness that not only balances out the fruit's sweetness but also makes the drink moreish.

Is It Healthy? 

What we love about homemade boba drinks is that they can be healthy if you prepare them with only fruit and no added sugar. We like to taste the melon to gauge its natural sweetness before deciding if we want to add sugar and, if so, how much. 

The calorie count for our honeydew melon boba drink is about 200 calories. The calorie count may vary from how much sweetener you use or what ingredients you have. So, this is only an approximate value of an average serving of our boba drink.

You will usually find that the recipe is prepared without using any tea. So, this makes everyday honeydew milk tea caffeine-free. However, if you want to add the extra punch of caffeine to the drink, you can brew tea (loose-leaf or bag) and add it in.

We recommend using Jasmine green tea as it adds a subtle earthy flavour to the overall drink. Make sure you brew this for longer so you’ll be able to taste it.

Honeydew Milk Tea Ingredients

You will need honeydew melon, milk, tapioca pearls, and sugar to make our honeydew milk tea recipe.

Honeydew Melon

There are three ways to prepare this refreshing honeydew melon drink. You can either use fresh fruit, powder or syrup.

Using fresh fruit

The first and best way is by blending fresh fruit. This is one of the most natural and wholesome ways to make this drink. Although it does take up more time, we found nothing beats using fresh ingredients as they come out most flavourful and refreshing.

You can easily find fresh melons in any season to make your yummy and nourishing fruit boba tea. Fresh fruits are always better than syrup and powder as they are natural and are overall more nutritious. 

When you're picking out the fruit, make sure to choose one that is ripe. These are usually more flavourful and juicier compared to younger ones. Generally, there are two fruit types: green-fleshed and yellow-fleshed.

Green-fleshed honeydew melons are more common and have a sweeter flavour. Meanwhile, yellow-fleshed melons are less common and have a more tart flavour. From our experience, both will work just fine, but given the choice, we would go for the green-fleshed melon for a slightly sweeter flavour.

Furthermore, ensure you pick a fruit that is ripe but not overripe. Overripe melons are overly sweet and often have an unpleasant mushy texture. A tip we like to use to find the perfectly ripe fruit is that it should have a slightly yielding feel when you gently press it. Alternatively, you can also use pre-packaged frozen melons.

Powder and Syrup

You can use instant melon milk powder if you're looking for a quick and convenient option. These powders aren't available in most grocery stores, so you'll need to buy them online.

Another way to make your drink is by using honeydew melon syrup or flavoured syrup. You can purchase the syrup or make your own by mixing some honeydew fruit juice with sugar.

Instant powder and syrup will have a more artificial taste. Additionally, instant powder and syrup are often sweetened with added sugar, which may taste sweeter than fresh fruit. Although these options are undoubtedly great, nothing beats fresh melons.

Tapioca pearls

These pearls are also popularly known as boba pearls. They are made from tapioca starch, which is used to make boba drinks. Tapioca pearls are often flavoured with brown sugar or honey, giving them a sweet and slightly caramel-like flavour. As per most of our boba recipes, we love adding them as boba toppings as they enhance any bubble tea drinking experience.

You can easily find them online or at any Asian grocery store. If you want to, you can also make them at home from scratch. If you feel fancy, add some strawberry-popping boba to our recipe. Any leftover pearls can be used to make some matcha boba.

Milk or Creamer

You can use any milk or creamer that you'd like to give the boba drink a smooth and creamy texture. However, our favourite choice for our recipe is almond milk.

In comparison to oat milk and soy milk, we found that almond milk’s natural nutty flavour complements well with the melon’s aromatic sweetness. In general, plant-based milk and creamers go better with our honeydew milk tea recipe compared to using dairy milk.

Dairy milk and creamers are quite heavy and rich, which can be unpleasant in a fruity beverage. We prefer to keep the drink light and airy. For similar reasons, we recommend avoiding coconut milk. Moreover, both dairy and coconut milk tend to mask the flavour of other ingredients, so they aren't the best choice for our recipe. 

Meanwhile, plant-based alternatives such as almond, soy or oat milk highlight the natural sweetness of the melon and render a light yet creamy texture.

Sugar

To make the drink sweeter and more delicious, you can add any sweetener of your choice. We are using white sugar just because it's a staple pantry ingredient. Alternatively, you could use brown sugar for a deeper flavour.

However, the drink is usually already sweet enough, regardless of whether you're using fresh fruit, instant powder or syrup. So, you could opt out of the sugar to make your beverage healthier.

How to Make Honeydew Milk Tea Using Fresh Fruit

1. For our honeydew milk tea recipe, first follow the package instructions and cook the tapioca pearls. Then, drain the tapioca pearls and rinse them with cold water.
2. Then, add the honeydew melon, almond milk, and sugar to a blender and blend until smooth. If you want a sweeter drink, you can add more sugar to taste. 
3. If you prefer your drink to be clearer with no fibre strands, then strain the blended mixture through a fine mesh strainer. This step is optional.
4. Finally, assemble the drink. Add ice cubes to a glass and fill it about halfway with the melon mixture. Top it off with some tapioca pearls and stir to combine before sipping away.

Using Honeydew Milk Tea Powder

Milk tea powder is a good bet if you have no fresh fruit. Many bubble tea shops in Seattle, Los Angeles, London and other big cities prepare their boba drinks with their own instant powder.

Furthermore, using melon milk powder is probably one of the easiest ways to recreate your own honeydew milk tea at home. All you need to do is mix the ingredients and enjoy the drink.

Ingredients

• Three tablespoon of honeydew milk tea powder 
• Two tablespoons of cooked boba pearls  
• Two tablespoons of creamer 
• Three tablespoons of sugar 

Cooking Instructions

1. Cook boba pearls according to the packaging instructions to bring out the best boba flavours. Then, set them aside.  
2. Mix the honeydew milk tea powder in 250ml of hot water and stir until dissolved.  
3. Then add creamer to it and add sugar at your desired sweetness level. Stir the drink until dissolved. 
4.  Finally, add boba pearls, ice cubes, and your melon drink mix to a cup. Enjoy.

Using Honey Melon Syrup

You will be surprised at how similar your boba drink tastes to the fresh fruit version when you use honeydew syrup to make it. Some Asian supermarkets may sell it in their shop. However, we recommend checking out online store options first. For example, specialised boba stores like BBT Club offer make-at-home boba kits that include honeydew boba tea syrup. 

Ingredients 

• One tablespoon of jasmine green tea (loose-leaf) 
• 40 ml of honeydew syrup 
• One tablespoon of sugar 
• ½ cup of ice cubes 
• Two tablespoons of black tapioca pearls (cooked)

Cooking Instructions 

1. Prepare boba pearls in a separate bowl and set them aside.  
2. Brew the tea in a kettle and pour it into a cocktail shaker.  
3. Mix this with syrup and your sweetener. Then, add ice cubes and shake well for 1 minute.  
4. In a glass, add boba pearls and melon mix. Enjoy.

Cooking Tips

Choose the right melon

The quality of the fruit you select significantly impacts the overall flavour of your honeydew boba tea. Ripe honeydew melon is sweeter and juicier, with a stronger fruit flavour.

First of all, pick a melon that feels heavy for its size. Ripe melons tend to be juicy and, hence, heavier than it looks. While this takes a bit of experience, take your time by carrying and comparing a few melons at the market.

Another trick we use to pick out ripe melons is by picking them up and sniffing the underside of the melon, near where the stem is or used to be. If you can smell a faintly sweet fragrance, then it is ripe.

Aesthetic green colour

The colour of fruit flesh varies, so you may not achieve the iconic bright green hue associated with the melon. While we don’t do it, you can add a bit of green food colouring to your honeydew boba tea to give it that typical green tint. This is absolutely optional and purely for aesthetic purposes.

Make it just before serving

To ensure the freshest honeydew milk tea taste with boba pearls, assemble the drink just before serving. You can prepare key components of your honeydew bubble tea recipe ahead of time to speed up the process and save time.

This includes creating the honeydew milk mixture and making the tapioca pearls. Both of these components can be stored separately until ready to serve. You can keep the honeydew milk mixture for about three days and the tapioca balls for up to 2 days. When you're ready to serve your honeydew boba tea, that's the ideal time to assemble the drink. 

Make a slushy

You can turn our honeydew milk tea recipe into a fun slushy. First, fill your blender halfway with ice and your base. The ice will give the honeydew boba tea a cold and slushy consistency, ideal for a hot day. 

In addition, you can skip the step of straining the juice via a fine-mesh strainer. The fruit’s fibre will add to the thickness of the slushy. However, if you don’t like the mouthfeel of the fibre strands, then blend the ice only after the step of straining the juice.

For our recipe below, we recommend adding just 1 cup of ice for 2 servings of slush. It's critical to serve your honeydew boba slushy immediately to ensure it retains its icy texture. If you leave it for too long, it will begin to melt and become watery.

If you enjoyed our recipe, you will love sipping on some honey milk tea. But if you're feeling a little more adventurous, look at our winter melon milk tea recipe.

Follow us on Instagram @honestfoodtalks for more delicious tips, tricks and recommendations.