Our lychee boba recipe is one of the tastiest fruity bubble teas, especially on long, hot summer days. The sweet fruitiness is almost as good as the condensation outside the cup—the ultimate refreshment.
The tea gives the drink a pleasantly light, earthy base. The pearls don't typically add much flavour but add a lovely texture. If you add milk, it smooths out the earthy base and adds creaminess to the table.
The fruit is often added as syrup or infused into the rest of the drink, and it rounds out each sip with a bright, sweet note that makes it wonderfully addictive.
In our lychee bubble tea recipe, we'll show you how we make this fruity boba with and without milk at home. We'll also show you some boba toppings to tie the whole thing together. The additional toppings bring a wonderful texture to the drink.
We've been making bubble tea on our YouTube Channel for a while now, and the taste of lychee boba is one of our favourites. It's sweet, refreshing, and delicious.
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Lychee Bubble Tea Ingredients
Here are the ingredients you'll need for our fruity bubble tea recipe.
- Lychee
- Green tea
- Simple syrup or lychee syrup from the can (optional)
- Milk (optional)
- Tapioca pearls or boba topping of your choice
Lychee
For our fruity bubble tea recipe, we recommend using fresh lychee, canned, or in juice form. The fresh fruit gives your bubble tea a lightly sweet and wonderful summery flavour. However, we do think it's a bit tedious peeling them one by one, deseeding them, and then blending them.
That is why we usually use canned lychee. While it isn't fresh fruit, it's well-preserved and has a refreshing tropical taste. It is submerged in a lightly sweet lychee syrup, which you can use as the sweetener for our drink. While nothing beats fresh fruit, it is harder to come by and less convenient for preparation.
Lychee juice is the easiest choice, but in our taste testing, we felt canned and fresh still tasted better.
In boba shops, they usually use syrup or powder processed from fresh fruit. Fruit syrup is typically a solution of sugar and water infused with fresh fruit to create a flavoured syrup. Both will give you consistent results every time. However, we don't like the additives inside and how you can't reduce the sweetness levels.
Milk
Dairy milk works well with our lychee boba milk tea. The tropical fruit has a distinct sweetness and fruitiness, so a neutral-tasting creamer like dairy complements the fruit well. But we've found that plant-based milks like oat, almond, and soy work well, too. Since this tropical fruit flavour is distinct, the flavours of the plant-based milk add a nuanced secondary taste.
Simple syrup or lychee syrup
If you're using canned fruit, it will be soaked in a lightly sweetened lychee syrup. We recommend just using the syrup from the can as your sweetener.
However, if you're using fresh fruit or want to add more sugar, we recommend using a simple syrup.
You can also use other flavoured syrups, like brown sugar syrup. If you want to use plain white sugar in our lychee boba recipe, add it to the green tea so that the granules will melt evenly.
Tapioca Pearls
Tapioca pearls are the classic boba topping that’s made from tapioca starch, water and sugar. Once boiled, they’re soft and slightly chewy. Our favourite tapioca pearl brand to use is WuFuYuan, but there will be lots of other options. When we have time, we do like making homemade tapioca pearls to control the texture better.
Lychee Popping Boba for Fruity Bubble Tea
Other than tapioca pearls, popping boba is a great alternative topping for our fruity boba without milk.
They're fun to pop in the mouth and add a delicious burst of flavour. Making them yourself is surprisingly simple too. So, we'd recommend giving them a go if you're into boba making. Here's our easy recipe and video tutorial to make lychee popping boba.
Lychee Jelly as a Boba Topping Alternative
We also love adding our own homemade lychee jelly to both milk and no-milk versions of our drink. It can be stored for several days without spoiling and doesn't need a lot of steps to make. The preparation method is the same as our coconut jelly and coffee jelly recipe.
Lychee Boba Recipe | Fruity Bubble Tea
Ingredients
- 1 bag green tea
- 3 tablespoon milk almond or soy milk works well
- 5 pieces lychee fresh or canned
- 2-3 tablespoon boba pearls
- 50 ml lychee juice or 4 tablespoon lychee syrup from the can
- 200 ml hot water
- ice optional
Cooking Instructions
- Boil a pot of water, and then add the instant tapioca pearls. Simmer in boiling water for 7 minutes, then reduce heat to low heat and continue simmering for another 5 minutes. Then, remove the pearls to an ice bath and let them cool down for 1 minute.
- While the pearls are cooking, you can brew your green tea. Pour hot water over the green tea bag in a cup or pot and allow it to steep for 1 to 2 mins. Put aside and allow it to cool.
- Once the pearls and green tea are ready, we can assemble the lychee bubble tea. Add the pearls to a glass cup, followed by ice. Then, pour the tea over the ice.
- Then, pour over lychee syrup or juice and optional milk. Finally, top off with whole fruit as garnish.
Recipe Notes
Nutrition
Calories have been calculated using an online calculator. Nutritional information offered on Honest Food Talks is for general information purposes and is only a rough estimate.
Lychee Bubble Tea Kit
Single or double-serving lychee bubble tea kits are a convenient way to get a small amount of each ingredient to reduce waste. They should come along with the tea, tapioca pearls, and sweetener needed to make lychee boba at home. We've found plenty of options for good kits online over the years, so we recommend shopping around to find the perfect option for you.
Now that you've learned how to make this fruity bubble tea, check out our YouTube channel, Honest Food Talks, for a visual walkthrough of some of our most popular Asian drink recipes.
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