Wondering how to make lychee jelly for bubble tea? Here is an easy recipe for you.
Jellies not only make great dessert, they make great jelly boba for milk teas and fruit teas too. Served cold with ice cubes, these jelly bubble teas are as good as bubble teas and milk teas made with boba pearls and are absolutely perfect for hot summer days.
Most commonly used boba balls for bubble teas are tapioca pearls or tapioca balls. These are made with tapioca starch and shaped into round balls. These boba pearls are then cooked into chewy pearls and mixed with brown sugar syrup and added to milk teas.
Jelly bobas not only make great chewy additions to milk teas and fruit teas, they can be combined with tapioca pearls or nata de coco in boba drinks to make a fun delicious add-on for these pearl teas. The recipe I have on this page is for lychee jelly bubble tea (lychee boba tea). It is a lovely black tea based fruit tea, infused with lychee syrup and filled with lychee jelly boba. This fruity bubble tea is an easy drink to make, and when served with ice cubes, makes an excellent drink on a hot summer day.
What is lychee
Lychees are tropical fruits commonly found in Southeast Asia. They are small and round, almost the size of strawberries. The fruits are red in color when ripe and have a thin coarse skin that is inedible. On the inside is the edible flesh and at the core of each fruit is a long brown seed, also inedible.
Lychee flesh is sweet and juicy and has a slight hint of citrus taste. The sweet scent of lychee and its sweet fragrant taste is a distinct feature of these fruits.
Lychees are not only great to be eaten plain as fresh fruit, they are great for baking and desserts. These fruits are commonly used in many Asian desserts and drinks (lychee jelly, lychee syrup, lychee tea, lychee lemonade, lychee green tea, lychee ice cream).
While it may be difficult to find fresh lychees, these fruits are easily available, canned. You can find canned lychees (in syrup) in most Asian supermarket or grocery store.
How to make lychee jelly for bubble tea
Lychee jelly is typically made with agar agar powder or konnyaku jelly powder. The former has a more chewy texture compared to agar agar jelly.
My lychee jelly boba milk tea recipe below is made using konnyaku jelly powder, but you can easily substitute it for normal agar-agar powder.
Ingredients
Lychee jelly boba
- Konnyaku jelly powder or agar agar powder
- Lychee fruits (canned )
- Lychee syrup (from the canned lychees)
- White sugar
Lychee tea
- Black tea bags or tea leaves
- Water
- Lychee fruits
- Lychee syrup from canned lychees
- White sugar
- Whole milk
Making the lychee jelly boba
- Mix jelly powder with the sugar. Set aside.
- Add the lychees into the food processor.
- Add water and lychee syrup from the can.
- Blend until the lychees are smooth. Transfer the lychee juice into a medium sized pot. Turn on the heat to low.
- Add the sugar and jelly powder mix. Stir to disperse the mix into the liquid. Let it cook over low to medium heat until the sugar and jelly powder is all dissolved. This should take about 5 to 10 minutes on low heat. If you cook the jelly over high heat, the liquid will evaporate quicker and you will end up with concentrated jelly solution as you wait for the jelly to dissolve completely. Hence it is important to let the jelly cook over low to medium heat.
- Pour the cooked jelly solution into a shallow tin or tray. Let the jelly cool slightly before placing it in the fridge to set completely.
Making the lychee milk tea
- Pour water into a small pot.
- Turn on the heat to medium and let the water come to a boil. Turn off the heat and add the black tea bags.
- Cover and let the tea steep for 3 minutes.
- Remove the lid, and remove the tea bags. Squeeze the tea for the tea bags with a back of a spoon and discard the bags.
- Add the tea to milk. Stir to mix.
- Add sugar to the milk tea. Stir to dissolve.
Cutting the jelly boba
Once the jelly boba is set (if should be firm when you press it with your finger), you can cut it to make the boba.
To transfer the jelly out onto a cutting board, loosen the sides with a palette knife. It may be difficult to transfer the jelly out even by turning the tray upside down and tapping it. Here is how I do it:
- Use a spatula to loosen the sides of the jelly.
- Cut the jelly into half.
- Turn it over onto a large plate. If it does not drop, lift the tray slightly and try to push the jelly out with your fingers. Do it gently to avoid breaking the jelly.
- Place the jelly onto a cutting board. Cut the jelly into strips making sure the width of the strips can pass through your bubble tea straws. At the same time, try not to cut the jelly cubes too small as you want them to be noticeable in your bubble tea.
- Next, cut the strips into small cubes, again, making sure the width is consistent.
- Transfer the cubed jelly boba into a bowl. Chill in the fridge until ready to assemble the tea.
Assembling the lychee jelly boba tea (lychee bubble tea)
- Add the lychee jelly boba into drinking glass.
- Top with the prepared milk tea. Add ice cubes if desired and serve.
Notes
Lychee flavor pairs
- Lychee pairs well with most teas and makes the among the best fruity bubble teas. You can substitute the classic milk tea in this recipe with green tea or jasmine tea or other fruit based tea drinks. These teas make great options for lychee jelly boba.
Best container to set the jelly
- When cutting the jelly, make sure the cubes are small enough to pass through a bubble tea straw.
- For that purpose and for easy cutting of the jelly, the jelly is best poured into a shallow tray or tin. I used a 9 inches square cake tin to pour my jelly. That way, the jelly was thin enough that I need not slice it into half horizontally before cutting it into cubes.
Can you make the milk tea with non-dairy creamers?
- Yes, you can. Simply substitute the milk with the non dairy creamer when making the tea.
- You can also use low fat milk or other milk substitutes like almond milk or oat milk if you like. Alternatively, you can also make the tea with milk tea powder.
Like this post on how to make lychee jelly for bubble tea? Here are my other posts you might want to check out:
- Lychee Ice Cream
- Lychee Lemonade - Easy Lemon Lychee Iced Drink
- Pandan Milk Tea - Easy Homemade Bubble Tea Recipe
- Lychee Simple Syrup - Easy Homemade Recipe from Scratch
- Lychee Jelly - Easy Agar Agar Recipe with Fruits (A Jelly Cake)
- Grass Jelly Milk Tea - Easy Bubble Tea Recipe
Recipe (Printable)
Here is the full printable version of lychee fruit tea recipe with jelly boba.
How to Make Lychee Jelly for Bubble Tea
Ingredients
Milk Tea
- 600 ml water
- 500 ml milk
- 3 black tea bags
- 4 tablespoon white sugar
Lychee Jelly
- 5 g jelly powder (konnyaku or agar agar)
- 200 ml syrup (from the lychee can)
- 200 ml water
- 75 g white sugar
- 10 lychees
Instructions
Making the lychee jelly for boba
- Mix jelly powder with the sugar. Stir well and set aside.
- Add the lychees into the food processor.
- Add water and lychee syrup from the can.
- Blend until the lychees are smooth. Transfer the lychee juice into a medium sized pot. Turn on the heat to low.
- Add the sugar and jelly powder mix. Stir to disperse the mix into the liquid. Let it cook over low to medium heat until the sugar and jelly powder is all dissolved. This should take about 5 to 10 minutes on low heat.
- Pour the cooked jelly solution into a shallow tin or tray. Let the jelly cool slightly before placing it in the fridge to set completely.
Making the milk tea
- Pour water into a small pot.
- Turn on the heat to medium and let the water come to a boil. Turn off the heat and add the black tea bags.
- Cover and let the tea steep in the hot water for 3 minutes.
- Remove the lid, and remove the tea bags. Squeeze the tea for the tea bags with a back of a spoon and discard the bags.
- Measure milk into a mixing glass. Add the tea to the milk.
- Add sugar to the milk tea. Stir to dissolve.
Cutting the jelly boba
- Once the jelly boba is set (if should be firm when you press it with your finger), you can cut it to make the boba.
- Loosen the sides of the jelly with a palette knife. It may be difficult to transfer the jelly out even by turning the tray upside down and tapping it. If you find it difficult to get the jelly out of the tray, use a spatula to loosen the sides of the jelly.
- Cut the jelly into half.
- Turn it over onto a large plate. If it does not drop out onto the plate, lift the tray slightly and try to push the jelly out with your fingers. Do it gently to avoid breaking the jelly. That should release the jelly from the tray.
- Place the jelly onto a cutting board. Cut the jelly into strips, making sure the width of the strips can pass through your bubble tea straws. At the same time, try not to cut the jelly cubes too small as you want them to be noticeable in your bubble tea.
- Next, cut the strips into small cubes, again, making sure the width is consistent.
- Transfer the cubed jelly boba into a bowl. Chill in the fridge until ready to assemble the tea.
Assembling the lychee boba tea (Lychee bubble tea)
- Add the lychee jelly boba into drinking glass.
- Top with the prepared milk tea. Add ice cubes if desired and serve.
Nutrition
And that's my easy recipe on how to make lychee jelly for bubble tea.
Enjoy!
amy
Do we need to use agar agar or konnyaku based jelly powder or can we use normal beef gelatine jelly powders?
Priya Maha
I have not tried this with gelatin, so I am not sure how it will turn out. Both agar agar powder and konnyaku jelly powder will work for this recipe.