I grew up buying cooked boba or tapioca pearls in the market so this was my first time cooking it and I thought I was smart enough since I cooked brown tapioca pearls before perfectly!

Wait, let me defend myself a bit. There was no instruction on the packaging! But my inner self was screaming — you should have searched it! Internet is free!

Boba is a Tagalog term for stupid girls which I brought to life when I did not cook the white tapioca pearls correctly. LOL.

Here’s the thing. The white vs the brown tapioca shares similar and different things when cooking them. Similar in terms of putting them in boiling water but different on the duration that you will have to simmer them.

Below was the disaster I made which was dissolved white tapioca pearls:

Please DO NOT put yet the tapioca pearls unless the water is BOILING!!!

LET THE WATER BOIL FIRST!!!

Then, put your pearly white raw tapioca.

Reduce the heat and let it slowly boil for 30 minutes.

Unlike the brown boba, with white tapioca pearls you should let the pearls sit in the water until it cools.

You should see mostly translucent pearls and few opaque like the photo below. If you see a lot of opaque, you need to BOIL the WATER again and cook the half cooked pearls for 10-15 minutes and let it sit in the water until it cools for 10-15 minutes.

After this time, you should see that most of the pearls are translucent.

Wash them to remove extra slimey coating of the pearls.

Then you can cook them in sugar syrup if you want them sweet!