Bubble tea is a Taiwanese drink produced by blending a tea base with milk, fruit, and fruit juices, then topping with the trademark “bubbles” – delicious tapioca pearls.
These delectable fruits or tea concoctions can be served hot or cold, making for a delicious and ever-so-interesting drink and snack. Bubble tea is served in transparent cups with a long straw so that the tapioca balls shoot up the consumer’s straw and can be bitten as you drink the wonderful liquid. The tapioca balls give it its name, as do the floating “bubbles” formed by vigorous shaking during the mixing process.
There is no historical evidence that bubble tea was invented, but it has a backstory like many teas! The combination is said to have initially appeared in different parts of Asia around the 1980s.
You can’t help but notice the unusual bubble teashops on every corner if you visit Hong Kong or Taiwan. In the 1980s, Taiwanese tea stalls grew in popularity as they offered a variety of enjoyable pick-me-up items and served as a nice hangout spot. As a result, the tea market became more competitive, and merchants began looking for and inventing more imaginative variations on their teas and beverages ever.
Can You Store Bubble Tea in The Fridge Overnight?
There are various opinions about whether storing bubble tea in the fridge is a good or idea or not. Bubble teas are comprised mainly of tapioca pearls, sugar, milk, and tea. Brewed tea can grow molds eventually, but if you are storing the original steeped infusion with no sugar or anything, then the longevity of the tea concoction would be higher than any other formulation that has sugar since molds and bacteria feed on sugar and other nutrients in any refrigerated food or beverage to grow. Sugar doesn’t increase moldy (the same way salt is), so we are left with considering the other ingredients in bubble tea. First, there’s milk and tapioca pearls.
Bubbles, boba, or tapioca pearls, as they’re more popularly called, are commonly used in drinks like milk tea and bubble tea.
Tapioca starch is used to make them. Tapioca gives any drink a delightful chewy gummy texture while also flavoring it. However, it’s critical to preserve your pearls carefully; otherwise, they’ll lose their chewy texture and flavor.
Cooked Tapioca Pearls are fine at room temperature for four hours or if these are refrigerated for no more than 72 hours after being poured in a simple syrup or similar concoction. Bobbas may also be frozen to extend their lives significantly. Cook a huge batch of tapioca pearls, use what you need, and then freeze the rest.
If refrigerated, milk will last 4-7 days after it has been opened. If the milk has been refrigerated, whole milk will last 5-7 days if unopened. If you have reduced-fat skim milk, it will hold for seven days, then increase that by three days if you have lactose-free milk.
“How long will my milk last once it has passed its sell-by date?” and “How long may any milk be left out?” are two very distinct queries with quite different responses. According to the US FDA, milk that has been left unrefrigerated beyond two hours is considered dangerous to ingest. If you want to maximize the storage time of bubble tea or anything with milk, you only have a week at most, and you have to put these beverages in the coldest spot in your fridge to get the most cooling effect. It has to be coldest short of freezing the Bobba tea, so the Bobba pearls or the milk doesn’t spoil. Again, the tea will be fine for a more extended period, but there will be issues with the rest of the concoction since it’s not just tea in your beverage.
So, what’s the general rule that we can follow for Bobba tea?
Folks who ask about storing large quantities of boba tea are usually the folks who can mix their milk or Bobba tea at home. We understand the apprehension since making large batches of Bobba tea if you are having guests over is necessary. The tricky part is storing what is leftover from the collection because it would be such a waste to throw out Bobba tea.
Let’s consider the condition of the Bobba tea. Let’s say that your Bobba tea was made fresh, and everything was pristine when the tea was made, meaning the batch wasn’t exposed that much. You can store the tea safely for 24 hours. So after 24 hours, the milk is still okay, and the Bobba pearls are still edible. Beyond 24 hours, the milk will likely begin changing. It depends on how long the milk was loaded into the concoction and what type of milk you have used. This is why we added a reference about milk types because the presence of fat and lactose in the milk affects its longevity after opening the carton. The less lactose and fat involved, the longer the lifespan of the milk.
If the Bobba was made recently, almost the same time as the Bobba tea was formulated, expect a good number of hours before it starts deteriorating. Be observant and check the Bobba tea if the milk isn’t curdling and if the Bobba is holding up well. Fresh Bobba will have a solid appearance; it won’t have a syrupy or weeping appearance either. Bad Bobba, on the other hand, will likely look soggy or goopy, and that might be a warning sign that bacteria may be getting ahead of it, consuming the sugar in the Bobba or bubble pearls.
Do you have Bobba tea in your fridge right now? First, check how many hours it has already spent in the refrigerator. If it’s beyond 24 hours, you have to check every component first. For example, sometimes the Bobba peals are delicate, but the milk isn’t anymore. You can’t drink the Bobba tea if any element has already spoiled.
