Mango Matcha Boba

You want to know how to make time go by incredibly fast? Have your best friend come to visit you for the weekend and do all the fun things! We welcomed my BFF Katie with a homemade pasta dinner (still working on my noodle skillz) and a tasting from Reuben's beer cellar/our hallway coat closet. Reuben and I joked around how we were acting like our prized child was coming home from college and we were pulling out all the stops! If my prized child was coming home I probably would have made 4x the pasta and had at least 2 baked good options ready...I did have a 2 tier flowery birthday cake chilling in my refrigerator though! Katie and Reuben helped me deliver it to a friend out in the East Bay and only 2 flowers plopped off! It's okay though I had my spare buttercream emergency kit ready. If you haven't rode in a car while grasping onto a giant cake box for 45 minutes over bumpy roads, then I don't think you know what stress is.

Since we made the effort to cross the narrow sea into the East Bay, we spent the rest of the day bopping around Oakland and Berkeley. We drank beers, got soft serve, and had the best nachos in the world! If you're in Oakland head to Arthur Mac's... see if they have vegetarian chili and request them on the nachos. You won't regret it! On Sunday we started the day off with warm buns from Harvest Wheat Field, a tahini tasting at the Clement Street Farmer's Market, and a visit to our new neighborhood coffee shop/wine bar. Inner Richmond is getting so trendy. Then we hopped on our bikes and whizzed all the way through Golden Gate Park, along Ocean Beach, and back. I realized that I'm not as terrible as I thought I was at riding a bike. I'll need to start riding more! We followed our bike ride with a hummus feast at Oren's downtown and then returned home to melt into our couch. We watch sports and ate Maui onion potato chips, then all of a sudden it was Sunday night and we had to say goodbye to Katie : (

Ah such a good weekend though! Why don't all my best friends live in the same place? 

This week is about to be a weird week... my last day of work is this Wednesday. I'll share more details in a separate post coming soon. I'm a little nervous, but good things are in the works! I'll need to grab a bubble tea to calm my nerves 😬

I've been finding myself trying to curb my cravings for bubble tea a lot lately. Maybe it's the slightly warmer weather or maybe because it seems like there is a new bubble tea spot opening up every week in San Francisco and I feel compelled to try ALL OF THEM. My problem with bubble tea a lot of the time is how ridiculously sweet they always are. How do you order your bubble tea? 100% sweet? 120% sweet?!!! I typically go for 30% sweet or less. Sometimes 0% if it's a fruity based tea. Oh and the powders! Don't get me started on the powders.... yuck. Bubble tea can be sooooo good but also straight up terrible if you're not lucky. 

I recently went on a middle school boba date with Reuben after work (not like I was dating or had the ability to freely get boba in Westland, OH) and we split a Mango Matcha Latte at Black Sugar. The flavor balance of Matcha and Mango was really nice! The layers were so pretty too, I almost didn't want to mix them up to drink it... almost. I also really enjoyed the sweet and perfectly chewy boba, the best part of bubble tea honestly. So like with most the things that I try out in the wild, I felt inspired to try recreating it at home! That way I can control exactly how sweet I want it and use my favorite matcha!! 

Aiya Culinary Grade Matcha is so perfect for my daily matchas and this layered Mango Matcha Boba. The matcha flavor is delicately floral and a little grassy. I also love that when I blend it up in my matchas or when added to my favorite bakes the color stays so bright and beautiful! Culinary grade matcha is ideal for baking and mixed drinks. Ceremonial grade matcha, the real good stuff, is best when drinking on its own, so you can experience the clean flavors.

When I first assembled this drink I thought it was going to be sooooo easy. The layers were going to come out so clean! This is going to be the easiest recipe to develop! Wrong. Or maybe I'm the only one that forgot about middle school science and the fact that different liquids have different densities, which would effect the order in which they should go in??? Either way, it took a few tries. The key is to have the heaviest ingredient on the bottom, in this case its the mango puree. Next are big ice cubes and whole milk. If you avoid dairy milk, I would recommend using an almond milk creamer or another equivalent. I tried using canned coconut milk the first time, and the flavor is great (if you love coconut like me), but it was a little chunky. So not the most photogenic ingredient. I prefer to use whole milk because it adds richness and provides enough structure to hold up the matcha. The final step is pouring the matcha over the big ice cubes, which helps to evenly disperse the matcha over the milk and avoids muddling the layers. HOWEVER, if you don't really care about clean layers then just throw it all into a glass and enjoy your stress free life. You're going to mix it all up anyways! Once you mix everything up together, you have a lovely and perfectly sweet iced drink! The sweetness comes completely from the ripe mangoes and a bit from the boba brown sugar syrup. The matcha flavor is strong and gives you a nice little energy boost. I probably drank this in like 3 minutes, it's so good! Now I need to make one every day to make it through this week!

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Mango Matcha Boba

makes 2 servings

Materials:

1 cup mango puree (from about 1 ½ mangoes)
1 cup whole milk or alternative milk of choice
2 tsp Aiya culinary grade matcha powder
Hot water
Ice

Brown Sugar Boba Materials:

1/2 cup dried boba
4 cup water + 3/4 cup water
3/4 cup brown sugar

Steps:

1. Prepare your boba first. Bring 4 cups of water to a boil in a small pot. Add dried boba to the boiling water, cover the pot, and boil for 3 minutes. Turn off the heat, keep covered, and let the boba sit in the hot water for an additional 3 minutes. Remove boba from water and place in a heat safe container.

2. Add 3/4 cup water and 3/4 cup brown sugar to a small saucepan and bring to a gentle boil. Once the sugar has dissolved, turn off the heat. Allow the brown sugar syrup to cool and pour over cooked boba.

3. Add boba to the bottom of glass and layer on ½ cup mango puree. Add ice and pour ½ cup milk over the ice.

4. Place 1 tsp of matcha powder in a small bowl. Pour in 2 tbsp of hot water and whisk into a thick paste, takes about 20 seconds. Add in ½ cup hot water and whisk until matcha is well blended. Pour Matcha in the glass over the ice.

5. Give everything a good mix and enjoy!

Notes:

1. No additional sugar is added in this recipe. All the sweetest comes from the ripe mango and the brown sugar boba. If you wish for a sweeter drink just add a few teaspoons of the brown sugar syrup.

Thank you, Aiya Matcha, for sponsoring this post!