Popping Boba is one of the newest and most popular toppings for bubble tea, boba tea, milkshakes. frozen yoghurt, ice cream and snow ice. Popping Boba is a unique boba that is filled with real fruit juice flavors that burst in your mouth i.e. bursting exploding boba. Popping Boba is considered revolutionary in boba technology and is the newest topping craze for all types of drinks, ice creams, milk teas and yogurts alike.
The ingredients for Popping Boba consist of water, sugar, fruit juice, calcium lactate, seaweed extract, malic acid, potassium sorbate, coloring, and fruit flavorings. The main ingredient is the seaweed extract, which is considered to be the outer shell of the Popping Boba.
Popping Boba is made from a trendy new way of cooking called “Molecular Gastronomy.”
Molecular gastronomy is a practice in food science that seeks to investigate the physical and chemical transformations of ingredients that occur in cooking.
For flavored liquids (such as fruit juices) containing no calcium, the liquid is thoroughly mixed with a small quantity of powdered sodium alginate, then dripped into a bowl filled with a cold solution of calcium chloride.
Just as a teaspoonful of water dropped into a bowl of vegetable oil forms a little bubble of water in the oil, each drop of the alginate liquid tends to form into a small sphere in the calcium solution. Then, during a reaction time of a few seconds, the calcium solution causes the outer layer of each alginate liquid sphere to form a thin, flexible skin. The resulting “Popping Boba” balls are removed from the calcium-containing liquid bath, rinsed in a bowl of ordinary water, removed from the water and saved for later use in food or beverages.
Of course, the most important and noticeable difference is that the former is made using tapioca flour, and the latter is made using mainly fruit juices. However, there are also other differences.
Tapioca pearls have more of a heavier, chewy texture. On the other hand, popping boba is less heavy and less tough. The latter bursts when bitten, adding a sudden burst of refreshing liquid to the mouthful of the drink.
Tapioca pearls are in almost every bubble tea drink and several other desserts such as cold puddings, ice creams, cakes, pastries, etc. In addition, if you buy a bubble tea home kit, shops will usually include tapioca pearls as the default topping choice.
Fruit pearls, on the other hand, are less versatile and more specialized. They help to contrast or complement the flavour of the drink or frozen dessert. For example, you can pair mango pearls with mango milk or plain milk; and strawberry pearls in a cheesecake drink. The possibilities are endless!
However, fewer people use them in tea-based drinks. Most people will prefer using them in milky or fizzy drinks.
As mentioned previously, popping boba uses a technique of molecular gastronomy, which is a ‘science of the chemical reactions of cooking’.
This technique is called spherification. Fine dining restaurants pioneered the method in the 1950s.
Chefs use sodium alginate, calcium lactate, or other calcium salts, such as calcium chloride, to catalyze spherification. These ingredients help form the liquid in question into delectable spheres with a thin skin that bursts when pressure is applied.
You achieve this process at home with a syringe or dropper to form pearl shapes. If you want to make these on a larger scale, we highly recommend investing in a caviar maker. This is a specialized molecular gastronomy tool.
The juice or liquid to be made into popping pearls is mixed with sodium alginate. This liquid is then dropped into a calcium salt solution to stabilize the pearls and achieve the thin coating on their exterior.
However, the ratios of the salts must be precise for the textures to be perfect. So follow our recipe exactly to make sure you can make the ideal fruit boba!
Compared to regular boba pearls, these are relatively much lower in calories since the only contributing ingredient is the fruit juice itself. Thus, each serving (of 30 grams) contains only 30 calories.
This makes homemade popping boba made with tea or black coffee the perfect choice if you want to enjoy boba drinks at a fraction of the caloric cost.
However, please note that it contains no protein and no fat since it is made with a beverage.
Fruit pearls, as the name suggests, are made using mainly fruit juices. Mango, Lychee, Passion fruit and Strawberry are among the popular popping boba flavours offered at tea shops.
The science behind spherification ensures that you can make virtually any liquid into pearls – even water itself!
You can store these pearls overnight in the fridge once prepared with no ill effects, unlike tapioca pearls. They can safely last for up to five days in the refrigerator. However, do not freeze the pearls since they can burst as the liquid expands.
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We believe in using the best quality ingredients to consistently serve our customers with a delicious range of drinks that have not only been created with utmost care, but also with the sharpest appearance.
You can also read about Matcha and Taro from our blog sections.
You can buy Boba/ tapioca pearls that can be ready in minutes from us here.
You can buy Boba/ tapioca pearls that can be ready in minutes from us here.
You can shop our Bubble Tea or Boba (in Bengaluru) from www.airmenus.in/bobatime
You can also buy Boba Time products from Swiggy, Zomato, Amazon Food and MagicPin
