A creamy dessert in milk tea form! Red velvet is such an interesting flavor and works surprisingly well with tea. It’s chocolatey, earthy, creamy, and slightly tangy, which fits well with the cheese tea craze.

It’s honestly one of my favorite dessert flavors to make as milk tea and a unique twist on the beverage. It’s really easy to recreate at home and feel like you’re at a boba shop with a delicious drink.

Here’s how to make red velvet milk tea with boba!

What is Red Velvet?

No, it’s not the K-pop group! Red Velvet is a cake flavor made from cocoa powder, buttermilk, vinegar, vanilla, and red food coloring and is often paired with ermine or cream cheese frosting.

People often don’t know what red velvet cake exactly is or assume it’s just chocolate and vanilla cake mixed with red dye. However, red velvet cake is different from chocolate cake in that it has a very distinct taste and texture.

History of Red Velvet

Red velvet cake has a fascinating backstory with arguments over who the original recipe creator is. Similar cakes to red velvet have been around since the 1800s, with velvet referring to the soft texture of the cake with cocoa powder, which was a luxury.

To make cafes softer, bakers add vinegar and buttermilk, preventing gluten formation and making the cake tough. This gives it a tangy flavor and reacts with cocoa powder to give it a reddish color thanks to cocoa’s anthocyanins, which change color according to the pH.

It was also popular during World War II when bakers used beetroot juice to make cakes red due to sugar rations. Now, the original red velvet cake in the U.S. we all know and love seems to have different origins.

The red velvet cake was famously started at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, also known as the Waldorf-Astoria cake. Around the same time, Adams Extract marketed its red food coloring with red velvet cakes, which landed on tables across the United States.

What Does Red Velvet Taste Like?

Red velvet cake is sweet, tangy, soft, and crumby, with a subtle cocoa flavor. It’s unlike any other cake that is refreshing and delicious. It really doesn’t taste like chocolate cake as creamy and tangy buttermilk and sugar mask the flavor. You also get a hint of vanilla.

It’s known for having a super soft, delicate, and moist cake crumb. It’s not airy like a chiffon cake, but rather soft and slightly dense. Red velvet often comes with ermine frosting, which is a boiled flour and milk frosting whisked with butter and becomes silky, smooth, and fluffy. It’s also not too sweet! Nowadays, cream cheese frosting is the frosting of choice because of how time-consuming ermine frosting is.

The cake and frosting are tangy, sweet, creamy, and complementary.

What Makes Red Velvet Red?

As mentioned, back in the day, cocoa powder, vinegar, and buttermilk, when mixed together, have a chemical reaction that turns the anthocyanins in cocoa powder red. This is because cocoa powder was unprocessed and alkaline, or basic, with anthocyanins.

However, these days, cocoa powder is mainly processed to improve its quality, which removes much of the anthocyanins in cocoa powder. So, these days, you won’t get much of a chemical reaction unless you hunt for natural cocoa powder.

Now, many bakers use red food coloring to get that iconic red color, either with synthetic or natural food dyes. Beetroot is also commonly used but may give the cake a slightly different flavor.

How to Make Red Velvet Flavor

For this recipe, we can mimic the red velvet flavor by using cocoa powder and cream cheese! Vinegar and acids in general curdle milk, so to avoid drinking curdled milk, I opted it out of this recipe.

You get tanginess from the cream cheese foam, which sits on top of our drink instead! You’ll use cocoa powder, vanilla extract, sugar, and cream cheese cream that, all together, should give you a flavor similar to red velvet cake.

With brewed tea, the red velvet flavor takes on a nice roasted and almost smoky flavor, which complements the tangy and creamy taste!

However, if you have buttermilk, I’d add some of it to your drink for flavor!

What is Boba?

Boba, or bubble tea, is a sweet milk tea drink with soft, chewy tapioca pearls. However many people use the term to refer to the pearls themselves. This tea topping originated in Taiwan in the 1980s, and Taiwanese immigrants brought this drink to the United States in the 2000s when it exploded in popularity.

The pearls are made from tapioca starch, mixed with water and brown sugar, boiled, then soaked in sugar syrup. They are a wildly popular drink topping for teas, milk teas, and smoothies.

The pearls are soft, sweet, and irresistibly chewy! There’s even a Chinese term for the perfect bouncy, chewy texture called “QQ,” which evolved from the Taiwanese Hokkien word for chewy, khieu/k’iu.

How to Make Boba

Cooking boba is a process of labor and love. From start to finish, the process takes about 45 minutes.

First, boil the tapioca pearls in water, then let it simmer for about 20-30 minutes or until soft and chewy. Then, you allow the pearls to sit for about 10 minutes. Strain the boba and let it soak in warm brown sugar or sweet syrup for 10-15 minutes or longer.

Then it’s ready to serve!

The boba is best consumed within three hours after it is made. If you let it sit or put it in the fridge, the pearls will become hard and crunchy in the middle.

How to Make Red Velvet Milk Tea

To make red velvet milk tea, you’ll need:

• Cocoa powder
• Vanilla extract
• Sugar
• Tapioca pearls
• Water
• Black tea
• Heavy cream
• Milk
• Cream cheese

Red Velvet Milk Tea with Boba Recipe

1. Boil tapioca pearls. Boil tapioca pearls in water for 30 minutes or until the pearls are soft and chewy. Strain and rinse the boba with cold water.
2. Soak boba. Add brown sugar and water to a pot and heat on low heat until the sugar dissolves and the liquid is very warm. Add the boba back and let it soak in the sugar syrup for 15-30 minutes, covered.
3. Brew your tea. Boil water and brew black tea in a heatsafe cup for 3-5 minutes or until the tea steeps completely. Remove or strain tea leaves when done.
4. Make red velvet milk. Add cocoa powder, sugar, vanilla extract, and milk into a small cup and combine until dissolved.
5. Make cream cheese foam. Whip cream cheese, heavy cream, sugar, and milk in a small cup or bowl using a handheld or electric whisk until it doubles in size and is fluffy. It should have a pourable consistency.
6. Assemble drink. Add boba, ice, tea, and red velvet milk to a separate cup. Top with the cream cheese foam.
7. Mix and enjoy!

What Goes Well With Red Velvet?

If you want to experiment and add more flavors to your drink, you can try adding:

• Raspberry
• Strawberry
• Figs
• More chocolate (lol)
• Mint
• Chai
• White chocolate
• Brown sugar
• Earl grey tea
• Oolong tea

Tips

Here are some tips for making a delicious red velvet milk tea with boba at home!

• For convenience, you can use instant boba instead of boiling your own tapioca pearls, which takes about an hour to cook. You can find instant boba packets from most Asian grocery stores.
• You can make this drink vegan with vegan cream cheese, cream, and plant-based milk. Some vegan creams include coconut, cashew, or plant cream.
• If you want to save your boba, you can fridge it or freeze it, then stick it in the microwave for 30 seconds with a little water, and it should soften!