Have you seen boba tea shops popping up across your region? Also often called ‘bubble tea’ or zhenzhu naicha (珍珠奶茶) in Mandarin, this Taiwanese drink has recently become popular all throughout the world with people of all ages. These tasty drinks look simply gorgeous, so many people wonder whether boba tea could possibly be healthy. We’re happy to report, drinking bubble teach offers lots of potential health benefits, especially if your boba tea shop uses premium ingredients like we do. 

What is Boba Tea?

Before we dive into the health benefits, it’s important to understand what drinks are classed as boba tea. Otherwise, you’re going to have trouble picking the healthiest options.

Traditional boba tea, which was originally popular among children, is made from black tea, milk, ice, and chewy tapioca pearls shaken, a little like a martini, and served with an extra large straw (because the tapioca pearls don’t fit through standard straws). However, as the popularity of bubble tea has grown, so too has the definition of what constitutes boba team.

Nowadays, boba tea can be made from:

• A base of black, green, or white tea
• Milk and/or yoghurt, or fruit jelly to give it that creamy texture (and all kinds of milk, including almond, oat and soy, are used to accommodate various dietary requirements)
• Ice, which brings the consistency to that of a slushy
• Additional flavorings like coffee, flavored syrup, or fresh fruit
• The chewy tapioca pearls (boba)

This makes for a fun drink with heaps of possible flavor combinations. So, as you can probably guess, the health benefits (or otherwise) will vary depending on the ingredients of the specific bubble tea you drink.

Now, while we’re on the ingredients, you might be wondering what tapioca pearls actually are. Here’s what they look like:

The balls, which are a cheaper version of pearl sago, are made from tapioca, a starch that’s extracted from the root of the cassava plant, water, and usually sugar or another sweetener. The mixture is rolled into shape and boiled until the outer later becomes gelatinous. They’re then boiled in sugar syrup before being served. To provide an aesthetically pleasing contrast to the milk in bubble tea, the boba is often died black with food dye or is made using brown sugar so they end up dark-colored.

The Health Benefits of Boba Tea

Because the tapioca pearls include sugar, many worry that boba tea is unhealthy. But these tasty drinks can provide lots of health benefits if you buy from a reputable tea shop that includes premium, healthy ingredients for flavor. Some brands do, unfortunately, pack their bubble teas with additional sugar, so if you’re after a healthy drink, choose fresh ingredients like fruit or yogurt, without added sugar, and choose your tea shop wisely!

As a perfect example, one healthy option at Boba Xpress is our Avocado Boba Tea, which features half an avocado. Avocados are packed with vitamins, minerals, and healthy fats, so make our Avocado Boba Tea a great healthy drink. If we delve into just one of the specific health benefits, avocados contain lutein, which is a carotenoid antioxidant that plays a key role in eye health. Lutein is used by an eye’s retina to filter out harmful light and protect the eye from free radicals. So if you want healthy eyes, our Avocado Boba Tea can help.