Global Café Speak
You might notice that throughout this book, what you might call a “shake” or a “smoothie” we sometimes call a “latte.” It’s a nod to the global café culture we see ourselves as a part of—in many of the Asian cafés we’re inspired by, that term has been embraced to cover all kinds of non-coffee drinks. The word “latte” is “milk” in Italian…so any drink that’s mostly made out of a milk is now considered a latte. And it elevates the ingredients a bit. Like, a red bean or sweet potato “shake” doesn’t sound as respectable as a “latte” to us. And that’s what you see at boba shops nowadays, so just go with it!
AVOCADO SMOOTHIE
We love avocado smoothies! It may seem like more millennial bait, but avocado smoothies have been a part of Vietnamese, Indonesian, and Filipino cuisine for a long time. The avocado acts like an ice cream here. It provides all the fat and heft you’d get in an ice cream smoothie—er, a shake.
There are tons of ways to riff on this: add blueberries, chocolate, banana—basically any type of fruit flavor or sweetness. Feel free to try those variations on your own.
MAKES 3 GLASSES
RECOMMENDED TOPPINGS: BOBA
2 ripe avocados
2 limes, juiced
1 cup whole milk
½ cup sweetened condensed milk
4 ounces (by weight) ice cubes
2 to 4 tablespoons (per glass) toppings of your choice (optional)
Cut the avocados in half, remove the pits, and scoop the flesh into a blender. Add the lime juice, whole milk, condensed milk, and ice cubes. Blend until smooth.
Add the toppings, if using, to three glasses. Pour the smoothie into the glasses, and serve.
ICED SWEET POTATO LATTE
OK, we know. Who wants to drink a potato? For whatever reason, this really works! When we tried this sweet-potato-and-milk drink in a popular all-day market in Taichung, we were convinced of its deliciousness. It’s hefty and a bit savory, but with both natural sweetness from the potato and two kinds of sugar. Combine that with the creaminess, and you can take one of these down easily without thinking of the word “tuber.”
But then we had an argument over whether we should offer this in our stores. Who would buy a blended potato? It was a huge fight among all of us at Boba Guys in the early days. To this day, we’ve never put it on our menu, but we all always order one when we see it on someone else’s menu. So here was our compromise: We promised ourselves we’d put it in the book!
MAKES 1 GLASS
RECOMMENDED TOPPINGS: BOBA
¼ cup Roasted Sweet Potato Puree (recipe follows)
2 to 4 tablespoons toppings of your choice (optional)
5 ounces (by weight) ice cubes
1 cup whole milk
In a glass, place the puree and toppings, if using, at the bottom. Add the ice and the milk. Mix before serving.
roasted sweet potato puree
MAKES 1 CUP
6 ounces (1 small) sweet potato
½ cup white sugar
½ cup dark brown sugar
½ cup filtered water
Preheat the oven to 400°F.
Use a paring knife to score the potato, making 1- to 2-inch-long slashes, just deep enough to pierce the skin, all over. Bake the sweet potato for 30 minutes or until a paring knife can poke all the way through without resistance. Allow the sweet potato to cool, then peel it.
In a blender, combine the sweet potato, white and brown sugars, and water. Blend until smooth. If you want, you can put the puree through a fine-mesh strainer for a smoother texture. Store it in the fridge for up to 7 days.
BLACK SESAME LATTE
Nutty, nutty, nutty. This drink is so nutty it’s almost meaty, which doesn’t really make sense until you drink it. We don’t use dairy with this—always good-quality thick almond milk. You want that interplay of sesame and almond.
MAKES 1 DRINK
RECOMMENDED TOPPINGS: BOBA, GRASS JELLY, EGG PUDDING
2 to 4 tablespoons toppings of your choice (optional)
5 ounces (by weight) ice cubes
1 cup unsweetened, unflavored almond milk (use the rich, thick stuff, like Califia or Elmhurst Milked Almonds, and if you can’t find those, Almond Breeze can be found at most grocery stores)
¼ cup Black Sesame Puree (recipe follows)
In a glass, add the toppings, if using, and the ice. Pour the almond milk over the ice. Gently spoon the black sesame puree over the ice to help with the layering effect. Mix before drinking.
black sesame puree
MAKES 3 CUPS (12 SERVINGS)
2 cups roasted black sesame seeds
1 tablespoon ginger syrup (see note)
1 cup honey
1 cup whole milk
In a blender, combine the sesame seeds, ginger syrup, honey, and milk. Blend on medium speed until smooth. The consistency should be that of a loose paste. Store the puree in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.
NOTE:
Ginger syrup can be store-bought, or you can simply simmer a few slices of fresh ginger in a mixture of 1 cup water and 1 cup granulated sugar. The syrup can be stored in the fridge for a few weeks.
ROASTED BANANA MILK
You already have all these ingredients in your house, so there’s no excuse not to make this today. Actually, you should make it in a few days, because you want your bananas to be super-ripe, like fully brown—the same way you want them for banana pudding, banana bread, or banana cream pie. There isn’t anything you need to worry about for presentation for this one, because everything just gets blended up together. This drink is fantastic in the late afternoon. When those pre-dinner hunger pangs hit, this will tide you over and give your mood a little lift, too.
MAKES 1 GLASS
RECOMMENDED TOPPINGS: COCONUT CHIA PUDDING, COCONUT ALMOND JELLY, JAPANESE COFFEE JELLY
¼ cup Banana Jam (recipe follows)
5 ounces (by weight) ice cubes
1 cup whole milk
2 to 4 tablespoons toppings of your choice (optional)
In a blender, combine the jam, ice, and milk and blend on medium speed until smooth.
Add toppings to a glass, if using, and pour the drink into the glass.
banana jam
MAKES 2 CUPS
4 ripe (dark brown) bananas
1 cup packed light brown sugar
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ to ½ teaspoon kosher salt (to taste)
Preheat the oven to 400°F.
Peel the bananas and slice them in half lengthwise. Cut those halves into ½-inch-thick pieces and place them in a mixing bowl. Add the brown sugar, lemon juice, and cinnamon, and toss thoroughly to coat the banana pieces. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, and spread the bananas out in an even layer on the parchment.
Roast the bananas until they are caramelized, about 15 minutes. Take them out of the oven and set them aside to cool. Once the bananas are cool, place them in a food processor and process until smooth. Add salt to taste.
The banana jam will keep in the fridge for 1 week.
COFFEE TEA “PLOVER”
Our friends at Andytown Coffee in San Francisco, Michael McCrory and Lauren Crabbe, make a signature drink called a “Snowy Plover.” It’s a coffee-based drink that tastes like a mocktail of sparkling water, cola syrup, and whipping cream. This drink honors Michael’s Irish roots as it’s their riff on Irish coffee.
We’ve been working with them for years, so as an homage, we made our own version, using an intense tea-infused syrup as the sweetener, a healthy splash of cold brew coffee, and salted buttercream topping because…fancy. It’s perfect on a misty, overcast day, which in San Francisco, is pretty much any day.
MAKES 1 GLASS
RECOMMENDED TOPPINGS: BOBA, COCONUT ALMOND JELLY
¼ cup Black Tea Syrup (recipe follows)
2 to 4 tablespoons toppings of your choice (optional)
5 ounces (by weight) ice cubes
1 cup sparkling water
¼ cup Cold Brew Coffee (see this page)
2 tablespoons Salted Buttercream Topping (this page)
Pour the black tea syrup into a glass, and add the toppings, if using, and the ice. Slowly pour in the sparkling water. Gently pour the cold brew over the ice, making sure to aim for the ice cubes to help with the layering effect. Top with the buttercream. Mix all together before drinking.
black tea syrup
MAKES ABOUT 1¼ CUPS
½ cup black tea leaves
1 cup filtered water, heated to 200°F
1 cup turbinado sugar
Steep the black tea in the hot water for 12 minutes.
Put the sugar in a container such as a mason jar. Strain the tea into the jar and mix until the sugar is fully dissolved. Allow to cool.
UME (JAPANESE GREEN PLUM) SODA
This is a deceptively simple drink. Just two ingredients. Ume—the Japanese plum—in syrup form, mixed with soda and served on ice. But you have to learn some new techniques you probably haven’t used before to pull it off, and chances are, you’ve never had these flavors in a drink.
To make this syrup, you layer the plums with sugar and leave them on the counter. The fermentation will break down the fruit and add complex flavor. You can also use this technique for almost any fruit, but it works particularly well with ume plums, which are commonly preserved in Japan.
It might be tricky for you to find fresh ume. It’s a summertime special, usually available just from April through June, even in California, where we live and where most of our stores are. When the season is on, you can find ume in many Asian stores and in well-stocked produce markets in big cities. You can always buy the ume when it’s in season and then freeze it. Actually, it will start breaking down when you freeze and defrost it, and honestly, we feel like this brings the flavor out even more.
But also, if it isn’t ume season and you want to get some delicious practice in on this recipe, you can try the rock-sugar-preserving technique with another fruit, like plums!
MAKES 1 GLASS
RECOMMENDED TOPPINGS: FRESCA KONJAC JELLY
1 fermented ume, from Fermented Ume (Green Plum) Syrup, (this page)
2 to 4 tablespoons toppings of your choice (optional)
5 ounces (by weight) crushed ice
2 tablespoons Fermented Ume (Green Plum) Syrup (recipe follows)
1 cup sparkling water
Place the fermented ume in a glass and add the toppings, if using. Add the crushed ice. Drizzle the syrup over the ice and add the sparkling water. Mix before drinking.
fermented ume (green plum) syrup
MAKES ABOUT 1½ CUPS
9 ounces (about 6) ume plums (see note)
1 cup + 2 tablespoons rock sugar
In a 1-quart mason jar, cover the bottom with as many ume as will fit comfortably. Add a layer of sugar on top of the ume. Repeat this process until all the ume and sugar are used up. Store the jar in a cool, dark, dry place. Shake the jar every day. (When the ume liquefies, you can just shake it every couple of days.) The contents of the jar should break down and the scent should deepen. You also might notice bubbles forming—this is normal. The plums should be totally soft after about 7 days. When they are, strain the plums, reserving the syrup (you can discard the pits). Taste your syrup. If you like, you can keep fermenting the syrup and plums in a cool, dark, dry area for up to another 8 weeks. Taste the syrup every day to make sure you like where the flavor is headed.
When the syrup tastes to your liking, separate it from the plums and move them to separate airtight containers. Store the syrup and plums in the fridge for up to 3 months. Use the plums as a garnish, and the syrup in drinks.
NOTE:
If fresh ume aren’t available, use frozen or replace with any plum.
Humans of Boba Guys
