Tapioca Pearls

About This Product

Tapioca pearls are spheres formed from tapioca starch, rolled or extruded to a controlled diameter and then dried. They are the chewy element in bubble tea and in a wide family of Asian desserts, and the reason they are made from tapioca rather than from a cereal starch is textural: the high amylopectin content of cassava starch gives a cooked pearl that is elastic and resilient rather than soft and pasty.

The texture has a name in the trade. QQ, from the Taiwanese, describes a bite that resists the tooth and springs back rather than yielding, and it is the property a bubble tea buyer is actually purchasing. It comes from gelatinising the starch fully through the pearl while keeping the sphere intact, which is why cooking instructions are specific and why pearl diameter matters so much to the operator: a pearl that is too large will still be chalky at the centre when the outside has gone to mush.

Black pearls take their colour from caramel or from brown sugar worked into the dough, which also contributes the faint molasses note expected in a classic milk tea. White and translucent pearls are uncoloured and are used where the drink or dessert is delicate, or where a specific colour is added. Instant and quick-cook grades are partially pregelatinised so that service time drops from the forty minutes a traditional pearl needs to a few minutes, at some cost in how long the cooked pearl holds its bite.

Cooked pearls have a short working life. They firm and retrograde under refrigeration, so they are held warm in syrup and discarded after a few hours, and a buyer specifying for a chilled ready-to-drink product needs a formulation built for that rather than a standard catering pearl.

Bio Green Foods supplies tapioca pearls in black and white grades and in a range of diameters, packed in cartons and bags. Diameter, cooking time, colour and moisture are confirmed on the agreed specification and on the batch certificate of analysis. They are naturally gluten free and non-GM.