With just sweet milk tea and chewy tapioca pearls, the so-called “Boba Boom” has swept across America, and in its wake are millions now hooked on bubble tea and dozens of boba tea brands spreading throughout the country. A 2021 survey by Bloomberg found that an incredible 94% of young adults between the ages of 20 and 24 had bought and tasted bubble tea in the three months before being surveyed. But if you’ve been following the news, all that sweetness does come with a catch, especially if you’re trying to watch your sugar intake. So here’s the big question: How much sugar are you really getting in each cup of bubble tea?
If you’re looking for a quick answer, then the answer is: a lot. An article published in the Food Science & Nutrition journal found that a medium-sized, 16-ounce bubble tea already clocked in at 38 grams of sugar. That’s just milk tea and tapioca pearls without any extra toppings or added boba flavorings! To put that into perspective, the American Heart Association recommended that men shouldn’t consume more than 36 grams and women 26 grams of sugar per day. As such, a single bubble tea already puts men at close to 100% and about 140% for women in terms of daily sugar consumption.
If you upsize to a large 22-ounce drink, the sugar levels go even higher. If we follow the 16-ounce cup’s sugar ratio, you’re looking at around 50 ounces of sugar, or over 137.5% of the daily sugar intake for men and almost 200% for women.
Does changing the sweetness level help?
Just about every boba tea shop these days will allow you to adjust the sweetness level from 0%, quarter (25%), half (50%), three-quarters (75%), to full sweetness (100%). Per the Singaporean National University Health System (NUHS), a half-sugared bubble tea has five teaspoons of sugar, which is equal to about 20 grams. That should get you quite close to the daily limits, but it’s definitely better than the full-sugared version. If you’re trying to be extra careful, the “safest” options would be going with 25% sweetness (about 2.5 teaspoons or 10 grams) or, even better, 0% sweetness.
But keep in mind that a “0% sweetness” bubble tea isn’t sugar-free. The milk has sugar, and the boba pearls are often made with a bit of sugar for flavor (contributing about 7 grams). So the reality is that the NUHS still found that a 0%-sweetness bubble tea has about 15.6 grams of sugar. It’s not ideal, but still manageable.
Want to cut it down even further? You can swap the milk tea for something like straight black tea or oolong. You’re not breaking any unspoken “boba law” here for replacing the iconic milk tea. With millions of possible bubble tea combinations, you’re free to tailor the drink however you want. Now, even if you add boba pearls for a nice chew, your lower-sugar bubble tea should only add 7 grams of sugar to your overall diet — quite reasonable as far as sugar intake goes!
