A tapioca pearl, also known as a tapioca ball, is an edible translucent sphere produced from tapioca, a starch made from the cassava root. They originated as a cheaper alternative to sago in Southeast Asian cuisine. When used as an ingredient in bubble tea, they are most commonly referred to as pearls or boba. The starch pearls are typically five to ten millimeters (0.2 to 0.4 inches) in diameter. By adding different ingredients, like water, sugar, or some other type of sweetener like honey, tapioca pearls can be made to vary in color and in texture. Various forms of tapioca pearls include black, clear, flavored, popping, and mini. Tapioca pearls are commonly soaked in sugar syrup to make them sweet and chewy. In teas, they are often added for their texture, with the flavor being provided by the drink itself.
The pearls are known as sabudana in the Indian subcontinent; they are used for sweet and savory dishes, such as sabudana khichri. In Brazil, the pearls are cooked with wine or other liquid to add flavor and are called sagu. In the United States, tapioca pudding is traditionally made as a custard-style dessert. The typical American version uses small pearl tapioca, milk, sugar, and eggs, cooked slowly until thick and creamy.
History
Making jelly-like desserts from starch and using them in dessert dishes and drinks originated from Island Southeast Asia. Traditional versions of tapioca pearls made from native starch sources like palm hearts or glutinous rice include pearl sago, landang, and kaong. They are used in a wide variety of dishes and drinks like bilo-bilo, binignit, es campur, es doger, and halo-halo, among others. The introduction of cassava from South America during the colonial era added another starch source to Southeast Asian cuisine, resulting in cassava-based versions of Southeast Asian dishes that were formerly made from native starch sources. Among these are tapioca pearls, which originated as a cheaper alternative to pearl sago. They are virtually indistinguishable in taste and can be used interchangeably. Pearl sago and tapioca pearls were introduced to Chinese cuisine via the Hokkien diaspora. They are popularly sold in "jelly tapioca pearls" (also known as "frog egg drinks") which are adaptations of Southeast Asian drinks and shaved ice desserts. They get their Mandarin name, "frog eggs", from their white appearance in the balls' centers after cooking. Vendors who sell the drink usually add syrup or creamer before serving, or serve it on top of shaved ice. In Taiwan, bubble tea is commonly referred to as pearl milk tea (zhēn zhū nǎi chá, 珍珠奶茶) because originally, small tapioca pearls with a 2.1 mm (1⁄12 in) diameter were used. The making of tapioca balls was also introduced to Brazil (where cassava is native), where they are still known as sagu, despite being made from cassava and not sago palms. Sagu is used in a traditional dish known as sagu de vinho ("wine sago"), popular in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul. It is usually mixed with sugar and red wine and served generally at room temperature. It is also often added to tea drinks.
Popularity
Tapioca pearls have increasingly gained greater global popularity since the 2010s due to the spread of Taiwanese bubble tea, also called boba tea, across Europe and North America. McDonald's restaurants in Germany and Austria were temporarily selling the dessert beverage as part of their revamped McCafé menu in 2012. Tapioca pearls have also gained popularity throughout fast food restaurants in the United States like Jack in the Box. Starbucks and Baskin-Robbins briefly sold bubble tea drinks in the United States in the early 2010s.
Manufacturing
Tapioca pearls are derived as baked tapioca products, which are obtained from heat treatment of the moist cassava starch in shallow pans.
Preparation of wet flour To create pearls, tapioca flour (also known as tapioca starch) is mixed with boiling water until a kneadable consistency is achieved. The dough is cut and rolled into a spherical shape. One method of achieving the correct shape is called the gangsor method. The starch is inserted into a long, cylindrical twill cloth bag and a jerking motion is used to toss the starch lumps back and forth. The lumps will become more firm and gain a more spherical shape. The process is repeated until the pearls have roughly become the desired size, then sorted according to size. Another method is to feed the moist flour into open cylindrical pans, which rotate for a certain amount of time and at a specific speed to form the pearls.
Gelatinization Traditionally, during heat treatment, the temperature is kept moderate so that only the surface layer of the lumps of the moist starch begins to gelatinize, and this process is described as gelatinization. One process of gelatinization is performed by placing the pearls inside shallow pans, which are then placed inside a brick oven. The pans are covered with a towel soaked in oil or fat to prevent burning the starch. While the pearls are heated over a moderate fire, it is stirred continuously with large forks to prevent burning. When this hand-baking process is applied to manufacture pearls, irregularly shaped beads may be obtained, inferior in color and in other qualities. To produce first-rate products, the starch beads are poured onto plates in a thick layer, and the plates are slowly drawn through a tunnel charged with steam. In this way, uniform gelatinization is ensured.
Drying During the gelatinization process, since moisture content does not change much, another drying stage is required to achieve the desired moisture content of 12%. Drying is done in a chamber dryer and when drying, it must have an initial temperature of below 40 °C (104 °F) to avoid further gelatinization.
Freezing Other than drying, freezing can also be used to preserve pearls before consumption. After gelatinization, the pearls are soaked in ice water to decrease the viscosity and enhance chewiness. If stored, pearls should be frozen using a quick freezing device, such as an air-blast freezer, or through an individual quick freezing process to prevent them from sticking together. One important note is that retrogradation happens quickest at near 0 °C temperatures, which would lead to tougher pearls, so it is best to minimize the time that the pearls spend in that temperature range and freeze the pearls to lower temperatures quickly.
Preparation for consumption
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