Sakura Matcha Bubble Tea
Matcha milk tea with pink colored sakura boba
This recipe is inspired by the cute Sakura Matcha Pocky, featuring homemade sakura tapioca pearls and matcha latte.
It offers an elegant flavor combination, combining the delicate sweetness and floral notes of Japanese cherry blossoms with the refined taste of matcha.
Plus, it looks incredibly cute!
Get ready to savor the taste of Sakura Matcha in a bubble tea with this easy to make recipe!
The inspirations for this recipe
Sakura and Matcha Sweets
Sakura (cherry blossoms) and matcha (powdered green tea) are two very iconic symbols of Japan.
Together, they beautifully embody the spirit of spring in Japan.
As Glico aptly puts it, they create “a Gentle Taste that truly captures the Heart of Japan.”
I stumbled upon Glico’s Sakura Matcha Pocky at a large Asian supermarket in my city last year, and we instantly fell in love with its vibrant colors and delightful taste.
Unfortunately, we couldn’t find it again until late spring this year, as it’s indeed a seasonal product.
So I decided to create some dessert-drinks that showcase this wonderful combination:
Honestly, it’s difficult for me to pick a favorite because they all turn out to be incredibly delicious!
And now that I’ve discovered a fantastic recipe for making tapioca pearls at home (which I’ll share in the next section), I’ve decided to create a bubble tea drink combining sakura and matcha.
If you love cute drinks, you really need to try it!
Homemade tapioca pearls
As someone who values clean eating (when possible), I’ve always had mixed feelings about pre-made tapioca pearls.
I had previously searched for recipes online, but many of them seemed overly complicated to me.
Until I recently came across this homemade boba recipe by Michelle from Sift and Simmer that has been a game-changer!
It’s perfect for several reasons:
- it only requires three ingredients
- it tastes amazing
- while shaping the small pearls takes time, the overall recipe is quite fail-proof
- you don’t even need to make or cook a separate syrup; the water from cooking the pearls is enough
For this recipe, I followed Michelle’s instructions closely, making just a couple of substitutions:
- Instead of using activated charcoal for the black color (which is optional), I used sakura powder.
- I swapped out the brown sugar for xylitol because that’s what we usually use at home (and I didn’t want brown sugar to mess with the delicate pink color of the cherry blossom powder).
- I also added an extra teaspoon of sakura powder to the syrup to enhance the pale pink color
Please check Michelle’s amazing homemade tapioca pearls recipe here.
What you’ll need
ingredients
Equipment
Tips
- Please visit Sift and Simmer’s tapioca pearls recipe for the exact recipe to make the tapioca pearls.
I genuinely LOVE this recipe and I use it as it, just substituting the activated charcoal for sakura powder to turn them into sakura tapioca pearls.
Boba, also known as tapioca pearls, are small balls made from tapioca flour. They have a soft and chewy texture, adding a unique element to desserts and drinks.
Beverages that contain boba, commonly called bubble tea or pearl milk tea, originate from Taiwan.
They typically include a sweet tea base, milk or non-dairy alternatives and a variety of toppings such as tapioca pearls.
While the pearls are typically black and have a brown sugar flavor, making them from scratch offers the flexibility to customize both its color and taste. For example, in this recipe, you can easily incorporate sakura powder for a unique twist.
Sakura powder has a delicate and unique aroma and taste that cannot be replaced by anything else.
But if you don’t have it and still want to make pink boba using natural ingredients, you can use pitaya powder (also known as pink matcha) or beetroot powder instead.
These alternatives will give a brighter pink color to your boba compared to sakura powder.
Yes. Matcha contains caffeine (a tsp. has round 38–88 mg), so a serving of this milk tea has around 19-44 mg caffeine per serving.
Sakura Matcha Bubble Tea
Equipment
- Bowl To make the dough
- small pot To cook the tapioca balls
Ingredients
For the sakura boba
- 12 tsp. tapioca flour
- 1 tsp. sakura powder
- 4 Tbsp. hot water
Syrup
- 2 tsp. sugar I used xylitol
- ½ tsp. sakura powder
Matcha milk tea
- 1 tsp. matcha
- 4 Tbsp. warm water
- 1½ Cup Milk
Instructions
- Make the tapioca pearls by following Sift and simmer’s recipe (link in notes), cook them and put them in their “syrup”.
- Once your sakura tapioca pearls are ready, make a concentrated matcha by combining the matcha with warm (not hot) water.
- To assemble, start by placing 2 tablespoons of Sakura boba at the bottom of a glass. Follow it up by adding 3/4 cup of milk per serving. Finally, top it off with the matcha.
Video
Notes
- Please follow Sift and Simmer’s recipe to make the tapioca pearls, just making this substitutions: switch the activated charcoal for sakura powder and the brown sugar for white sugar.
- You’ll only need approximately 1/3 of the tapioca pearls to make 2 servings of this drink.
Therefore, you can either cook a smaller portion and freeze the remaining uncooked pearls for another day or serve them separately as a dessert. - In my experience, 1 teaspoon cherry blossom is enough to get a subtle yet noticeable sakura taste.
However, if the color of your pearls is too pale (as mine, which looked almost as chickpeas), I recommend adding an additional 1/2 teaspoon of cherry blossom powder to intensify the pink hue.
