Hojicha Bubble Tea with Brown Sugar Syrup

Name: Hojicha Bubble Tea
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 10 min
Total time: 20 min
Ingredients: ½ cup tapioca pearls; ¼ cup muscovado sugar (or dark brown sugar); 40 ml water; 4 tsp hojicha powder; 200 ml cold water; 500 ml milk (or non-dairy milk)

Jump to Recipe - Print Recipe

This Hojicha Bubble Tea with Brown Sugar Syrup is a super easy drink to make. A little bit smoky, sweet, and full of roasted tea flavour notes, this hojicha boba tea is so refreshing.

If you’re a fan of green tea, then you’d love this hojicha bubble tea. I’ve combined my love for brown sugar milk tea with hojicha and this delicious hojicha boba tea is the result.

As a bubble tea lover who has probably averaged 2-3 a week when Chatime opened near my workplace and Tiger Sugar came to Toronto, moving away from it reallllly hit me hard. I needed to get my fix of it! This post will show you just how easy it is to make bubble tea at home! You really wouldn’t believe how easy it is to make brown sugar milk tea, especially if you’re using store-bought tapioca.

What is Hojicha?

Hojicha is a Japanese roasted green tea that is made by slowly roasting twigs and leaves of the tea plant. Hojicha has a toasted nutty taste to it as well as a smoky sweet flavour thanks to the roasting process. This recipe uses hojicha powder.

What You’ll Need to Make Hojicha Bubble Tea

tapioca pearls — I use these specific ones for extra sweetness for this hojicha boba. You can use any topioca pearls you like.
muscovado sugar — or dark brown sugar. Muscovado sugar is a little less refined than regular brown sugar so it has more pronounced caramel and toffee notes to it.
hojicha powder — you can get this from Amazon! I also love hojicha from Hojicha Co and Paragon Tea Room. The hojicha used in the brown sugar milk tea photographed is Paragon Tea Room’s Hojicha Obsidian.
milk — or non dairy alternative.
water

How to Make Brown Sugar Hojicha Boba

Brown Sugar Boba Pearl Syrup

Prepare your tapioca pearls according to the package.
In a pot, combine the muscovado sugar with 40 ml of water and bring it to a boil. Turn down the heat to a simmer and add in the prepared tapioca pearls. Simmer until the brown sugar syrup has thickened. Simmering the cooked tapioca pearls in the syrup just adds more flavour to them.
Remove from heat once it has thickened.

Glass with brown sugar syrup and tapioca.

Hojicha Bubble Tea

In a small bowl, whisk together the hojicha powder and 200ml of cold water. Set aside.
In a cup, add in half of the brown sugar syrup with the pearls.
Top with some ice, half of the milk, and half of the whisked hojicha.
Stir to combine and enjoy!

Hojicha added to the glass of milk and tapioca.

Tips and Notes

Please feel free to adjust the amount of tapioca pearls and brown sugar syrup to your liking. I prefer my boba tea to be on the sweeter side and I love chewing on QQ pearls so I’m all for it! I usually add extra to mine and H adds less to his. My glass of hojicha bubble tea is usually much bigger than the glass pictured here haha.
Feel free to double or even triple this recipe.
Be sure to get some boba straws as your pearls won’t fit through regular straws!

Boba FAQs

Can you make your own boba pearls?

If you want, you can definitely make your own pearls. For a while, I made my own but it was so time consuming rolling every single tapioca pearl by hand that I just purchase the shelf stable ones instead. This is the one I buy.

Can I add ice?

You can definitely add ice! I usually skip the ice since I don’t like how it dilutes the drink if I don’t finish it fast enough.

What if I only have loose leaf hojicha?

When I’ve only had loose leaf hojicha, I turned it into a powder by using H’s coffee grinder. It gets the job done when in a pinch. It’s definitely not as fine of a powder though.

Since we are turning it into a fine powder, I don’t think a large food processor would work as you’ll need to put in a ton of hojicha.

What is the difference between “Boba Tea” and “Bubble Tea?”

They’re the same thing. Boba, boba tea, bubble tea, milk tea, tapioca tea, pearl milk tea. It’s mostly a regional verbiage.

Do I have to sift my hojicha powder?

If it’s something you feel like doing, more power to you! I usually just whisk my hojicha powder as is since sifting it requires extra work.

Does this have caffeine?

Hojicha has a very low amount of caffeine!

Can I make this ahead of time?

The boba balls are best consumed immediately so I would not recommend making this in advance.