Can’t stop drinking boba milk tea? Neither can I! While our hearts and stomachs might be happy, our wallets might not. Everything from milk tea to coffee is getting more expensive, so a great way to save money is to make your own roasted oolong milk tea at home.

Tapioca pearls, or boba, are simple to make at home, and with a bit of practice, you’ll be a pro at making soft, chewy pearls that are delicious in any tea. Plus, you’ll save $7 from buying it at the shops.

Here’s how to make a roasted oolong milk tea with boba at home!

What is Deep Roast Oolong Milk Tea?

As the name suggests, deep roast oolong or roasted oolong tea is oolong that’s roasted after it’s been picked. All tea comes from the same plant, Camellia sinensis, and how you grow, harvest, and process the leaves determines the different teas and flavors.

Oolong tea sits in the middle ground between green and black tea, with a distinct floral and toasted flavor. Tea farmers achieve this by semi-oxidizing the tea leaves, primarily through sun-drying. Once the oolong tea is finished, it is roasted over a charcoal fire to make roasted oolong tea. Historically, this roasting process actually came about as a way to preserve tea for longer journeys, as moisture invites mold growth.

What Does Roasted Oolong Tea Taste Like?

Imagine an oolong tea but darker, with a prominent toasted and roasted taste. That’s what a roasted oolong tea tastes like! You’ll also pick up some caramel, malty, and wood-smoky flavors.

It’s one of my favorite teas, and the roasted aroma and flavor are unbeatable. It’s great with milk, sugar, and, of course, tapioca pearls for a delicious roasted oolong milk tea. It complements brown sugar well and also tastes phenomenal with a sweet cream cold foam.

Different Types of Roasted Oolong

You can roast different types of oolong to get roasted oolong. Most boba shops will use a heavily roasted, charcoal-fired variety to get a rich and aromatic flavor. A light, floral, green oolong (like a lightly oxidized High Mountain oolong) will be completely drowned out the moment you add milk and ice.

Look for these specific cultivars at your local Asian market or online tea retailer:

• Dong Ding (Frozen Summit): A classic Taiwanese medium-to-heavy roast oolong. It is incredibly smooth with sweet, toasted-nut and honey undertones. This is the gold standard for traditional milk tea, and the famous Chi Cha San Chen uses this tea.
• Tie Guan Yin (Iron Goddess): While sometimes served light, you want to hunt for the traditional or dark-roasted version. It has a bold, robust cup that balances out milk and sugar well!

Note on Cultivars: Don’t confuse Oolong Milk Tea (the brewed beverage with dairy) with Milk Oolong (Jin Xuan). Milk Oolong is a specific loose-leaf tea known for its naturally creamy flavor profile, traditionally enjoyed plain without any actual milk added!

Can You Roast Oolong Yourself?

Yes, you can roast oolong tea using an oven, toaster oven, or stovetop.

Generally, you’ll want a flat surface where you can spread tea leaves evenly so that they roast evenly. Set your oven to 200 and roast your leaves for 5-10 minutes or until they have a roasted aroma. Increase the temperature every 5 minutes by 50 degrees until roasted desired-ness.

This process of gradual roasting also helps refresh your tea! If you have stale tea, you can give it a nice short roast, which helps return the flavors.

Stir your tea leaves every couple of minutes so that they roast evenly and don’t burn.

Honestly, roasting tea at home is relatively informal, so experiment with different temperatures and times to get different tea flavors. Just don’t burn it!

How Much Caffeine Does Roasted Oolong Tea Have?

Oolong tea has about 30-40 mg of caffeine per 8-ounce cup, more than green tea (~25 mg) and black tea (~60 mg).

Although black and green tea come from the same plant, black tea has more caffeine than green tea from the way the leaves are processed.

Some speculate that green tea has more L-theanine, a natural compound in tea that helps lessen caffeine effects.

However, roasted teas generally have less caffeine than unroasted teas because the process turns caffeine into gas, which is released into the air from the leaves. So, roasted oolong has less than ~35 mg of caffeine per 8-ounce cup.

However, other factors like brewing time and water temperature also affect the amount of caffeine in the tea.

How to Get Perfectly Chewy Boba

To make perfectly chewy boba, boil the tapioca pearls in water for 20-25 minutes, then let them soak in the same warm water for another 20 minutes. This two-step process allows the pearls to become fully gelatinized, the scientific secret responsible for that signature, bouncy QQ texture. The second step is the most crucial for texture!

How? During cooking, the starch molecules in the tapioca absorb water and heat, causing them to swell and permanently soften. If you skip the resting soak, the core of the boba remains dense and undercooked.

Pre-Gelatinized vs. Fully Raw Pearls

If you’ve ever wondered why boba shop pearls taste so much bouncier compared to the ones you make at home, it’s probably due to the type of pearl they use:

• Boba Shop Pearls (Dehydrated/Raw Starch): Professional boba shops usually buy raw, fully dehydrated tapioca pearls (which you can also buy at the grocery store). Because these pearls are not cooked, they require a lengthy boiling and resting process (often 60 to 90 minutes total) to gelatinize properly. This long, slow cook is exactly what makes boba shop boba so remarkably chewy and soft.
• Grocery Store Pearls (Pre-Gelatinized Starch): The quick-cooking or “5-minute” boba packets you find at the grocery store have actually been pre-gelatinized and then dried during manufacturing. Because the starch has already been partially cooked for you, they rehydrate rapidly at home. They do the trick in a pinch, but they lose their chew much faster and don’t quite match the depth of a fresh, raw pearl.

No matter which raw pearl you choose, always follow your specific boba packet for exact boiling times, as formulations vary wildly.

Once your timer goes off, strain the pearls and immediately rinse them under cold running water. It washes away the gummy, excess surface starch that causes clumping, and it shocks the pearls, halting the cooking process so they stay chewy.

Finally, transfer your rinsed pearls into a rich sugar syrup to soak so that they don’t turn out bland (no one likes bland boba).

So as you can see, making good boba is time-consuming, and not everyone wants to cook boba for an hour for one drink. That’s why it’s so easy to go out and buy a boba drink, but they’re about $7 a pop.

Tips

Here are some tips to make a great roasted oolong milk tea with brown sugar boba at home!

• To make boiling boba faster, boil your water in a kettle first, then use it in the pot.
• If you don’t have the milk powder stores use for their drinks, you can always substitute it for coffee creamer or regular milk.
• If you use actual milk, use one that has more fat, like whole milk or half and half. It will help make your tea creamy without diluting the flavor.
• You can find roasted oolong tea from some bubble tea stores or your local tea store, especially the Asian tea stores.
• Make sure you have a big straw to drink your boba with!

More Milk Tea Recipes to Try

After you make this delicious oolong milk tea, you need to try my Molly Tea jasmine milk tea recipe that is so fragrant and creamy. For another boba shop classic, make a brown sugar milk tea with boba or a sweet and creamy Thai iced tea. And for the creamiest, flavorful Earl Grey milk tea, try my viral cold brew Earl Grey milk tea recipe. You steep leaves in milk, and you get an amazing tea milk!