Is Bubble Milk Tea Healthy?

The short answer is - milk bubble tea is as healthy as you make it. The tea itself is healthy but it all depends on the amount of extras added such as the milk, sweetener, caffeine and topping content. 

Let's take a deeper look into each component of bubble tea, and the steps you can take to make your beverage that little bit healthier, if you wish to do so. 

Generally, bubble tea consists of 4 parts: the tea, the milk, the sweetener, and the toppings.

The Tea

It may sound super obvious, but tea plays a very important role when making bubble tea, if not the most important. 

Interestingly, there are hardly any calories in the majority of teas, whether it is black tea, green tea, or some other herbal teas. It is in fact the other ingredients of bubble tea that contain the calories. 

Take a look at the many health benefits of drinking tea. 

The Milk 

Although traditional bubble tea is made with cow’s milk, bubble tea can be customised to be made with non-dairy milk and other vegan alternatives. You can also get flavoured fruit bubble tea, which doesn’t contain milk at all. 

Now, depending on what milk is used will determine whether your bubble tea calories fall into the higher range or lower range. Some kinds of milk commonly used are regular milk, non-dairy milk, almond milk, or soy milk.

As a general rule, plant-based milk usually has a lower per cup calorie count than full dairy milk.

The Sweetener

Usually, bubble tea shops will use several different sweeteners in order to give you the sweet desirable taste. Common sweeteners used in bubble tea are white sugar, brown sugar, sugar syrup, fructose and honey.

The Toppings 

Toppings like tapioca pearls and popping bubbles also contribute to the added sugar present in the beverage. For every 15g of regular tapioca pearls topping, about 280 kcal are added to the drink.

While pearls are the most common topping, there are other alternatives that are not as dense with calories, for example, 15g of grass jelly only has 30 kcal and 15g of pudding only has 120 kcal.

If you’re looking to make your milk bubble tea as healthy as possible, below are some tips you may want to try when next ordering.

How to reduce the calories in your bubble tea

1. Ask for less or no sugar. Most bubble tea shops let you choose how much sugar you want in your drink, so consider reducing it to half sweetness or 10% sweetness. You may even want to cut out the sugar all together. 

2. For beverages with dairy, the majority of the calories come from the milk ingredients and so we recommend opting for low-fat or dairy-free milk, when trying to reduce calories. 

3. Not having any toppings would be best if you are just aiming for low calories. However, if that is too much to ask for, we recommend that you go for the low calorie toppings mentioned above, such as grass jelly. 

4. Choosing fruit/ herbal teas like green or oolong tea will see the calorie count typically drop. For example, passion fruit bubble tea calories are only at 300 kcal. The same goes for the calories in mango bubble tea and strawberry bubble tea.

For more information about how to make bubble tea healthy, check out this blog.

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Remember that abundance of sugary consumption can lead to an unhealthy diet.  As doctors always say, consume everything in moderation. 

At Bubblebase, the majority of our drinks and toppings are vegan friendly and gluten free. All of our fruity teas and the majority of the bubble tea toppings are vegan friendly and our milky flavours are suitable for vegetarians.

We truly have something for everyone! Check out our full menu here.

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