Who doesn't want to eat tea bubbles?! And I'm not talking about tapioca pearls, fruit jellies or popping boba that are commonly added to bubble tea.
Agar Fruit Tea Bubbles
Lisa (owner of TeaHaus in Ann Arbor, Michigan) and her sons are always cooking up new things with tea, and they recently made bubbles, or pearls – not for tea, but using tea!
They selected two fruit teas – Passionfruit and Summer Romance – that have vibrant colors when brewed, ideal for making visually beautiful bubbles.
Passionfruit is a naturally caffeine-free blend of fruit and flower blossoms that makes a saturated-yellow cup.
Summer Romance is a naturally caffeine-free blend of fruits and berries, blossoms, strawberry leaves and vanilla that brews into a gorgeous crimson color.
So to make your own tea bubbles, first brew a cup of strong tea (Lisa recommends fruit or Rooibos blends). Strain the tea and then combine one cup of tea with one teaspoon of agar. Bring to a boil while stirring with a whisk.
Then, using a dropper or syringe, drop the tea-agar liquid into very cold vegetable oil (freeze for half an hour before using)
Strain the bubbles out and rinse with water.
The tea bubbles are beautiful – and delicious!
Gelatin Black Tea Bubbles
It’s also possible to make tea bubbles with gelatin rather than agar, as both are gelling agents.
Gelatin is made of collagen, the protein that comprises a third of our body’s protein makeup. When gelatin is heated, its proteins come apart as long strands, and as the gelatin cools, the proteins start interweaving with each other. But when the gelatin is surrounded by cold oil, the proteins won’t interact with the gelatin, so the strands form a sphere, which minimizes their contact with the oil. As they do this, liquid becomes trapped in the sphere and gels.
Agar comes from agarose, a polysaccharide (a carbohydrate made of sugar molecules) found in the cell walls of algae, a simple plant without stems, roots or leaves. This vegetarian and vegan option for animal-based gelatin, as shown above, reacts like gelatin when dropped in oil, forming a sphere.
I tried my hand at using gelatin, choosing a flavored black tea. Wanting something with some heft, I chose a blend called Chili Chocolate, which contains tea (black, roasted green and oolong), cocoa pieces, hazelnut brittle, blossoms and spices. I love this tea because it’s a robust tea that has a hint of chocolate, but later, after you swallow, you get an incredible heat from the chili peppers that is positively addicting.
I brewed the tea a tad stronger than I normally would, and, over heat, added gelatin powder (one 7-g package to ¼ cup of tea), stirring until fully dissolved. After cooling for five minutes, I used first an eyedropper and then a baster (with better results), to drop the warm tea solution into the cold oil.
As I had hoped, the bubbles had a tea-and-slight-chocolate flavor, but at the end I really got that heat of the chili peppers. For fun, I tried them with a dollop of whipped cream (because why not?!) and considered what other foods – both sweet and savory – would pair well with these bubbles. Of course, you could simply put these into iced tea, but why restrict them to tea
And think about all the tea possibilities. Lisa’s flavorful fruit bubbles would be pretty on any summer dessert; Earl Grey bubbles might be lovely garnishing whipped cream and a delicate cake. What about sencha bubbles with sour cream atop a baked potato?
Molecular Gastronomy Fun!
No matter how you make or serve tea bubbles, you are engaging in molecular gastronomy, or the science of cooking, which investigates how the outcome is affected or determined by how the food is prepared. This still evolving field can also be defined as “the use of advanced chemical and biochemistry to create novel foods” (Sivakumaran 2018).
Transforming liquid tea into a gelatinous bubble is an example of spherification, one branch of molecular gastronomy, and a technique that is both widely used and highly researched. The chef controls not only the flavor, but also whether the spheres encapsulate liquid or a gel. To get a sense of the complexity involved, the chef must optimize such things as viscosity, acidity, calcium level, density, and concentration.
In addition to spherification, there’s also reverse spherification and even extrusion-based layer-wise deposition used with reverse spherification (basically a 3D printer for making juice-filled bubbles). Although a basic knowledge of science has always been useful in the kitchen, today’s chefs benefit from extensive research conducted in laboratories and perfected in experimental kitchens. And of course there are chefs who are scientists themselves, inventing and innovating in restaurant kitchens.
But for the home cook, basic tea bubbles are fun and easy to make, yielding delicious results – and perhaps a novelty to serve at your next dinner party!
Jill Rheinheimer draws on her deep background in scientific research and written communication to make tea-related research and history accessible to a general audience. She began her career in cell biology research labs, eventually moving into archaeology and anthropology as editor and publisher of scholarly monographs, while freelancing as editor, writer and book designer. Rheinheimer brings a love for research and photography, attention to detail and deep appreciation for the world of tea to her blog, It’s More Than Tea, and her work at TeaHaus in Ann Arbor, Mich.
Lisa McDonald’s TeaHaus – a loose-leaf tea store and café – opened in Ann Arbor in 2007. Emphasizing education and community outreach, TeaHaus holds tastings, pairing events and other programs, collaborating with distilleries, tea growers, artists and more. McDonald also owns Eat More Tea, which sells tea-based spice blends for the everyday chef. To learn more, visit TeaHaus.com and EatMoreTea.com.
Source:
K. Sivakumaran, “An overview of the applications molecular gastronomy in food industry,” International Journal of Food Science and Nutrition 3(3):35–40. May 2018.