No More Boba Tea Guilt

Today marked another baby step in my quest to create less trash: my cobbled together boba cup!  I love boba (also known as bubble tea), but I get queasy when I get the plastic cup heat sealed with the plastic lid and the giant plastic straw. After inhaling another boba tea, I mentioned to my friend that I really need to stop ordering these drinks or think of a way to get the drink without all that trash. Since I so rarely get single-use cups nowadays, it felt odd and wrong to toss everything. (Yes, I've been living in Berkeley for a long time!)

I started by researching the crux of this setup, the boba straw. I found a glass option and a metal option, and after mulling over the two, I went with the 10" boba straw from The Mulled Mind. Once I had that, I had the other pieces of the setup at home. The lid comes from reCAP, and the jar is a Ball Pint & Half. The reCAP lid is for wide-mouth jars. If I were to buy the setup, it would cost around $15 (jar is $1.50 jar + $7.00 lid + $6.50 straw). Mine boba kit costs a few dollars less than that because I bought the lids and jars in bulk. The lid is the most expensive component, and it certainly isn't necessary - I like mine because I'm usually in my car when the urge to get a boba hits me, so this keeps spilling to a minimum.

For you Bay Area boba fans, County Cheese in Kensington makes a fantastic version. They use high quality tea, real milk (instead of that sketchy powered creamer stuff), and the boba is boiled in sugar water and has the right amount of chew. I always hate it when I order a boba and instead of being chewy, the tapioca balls are old and mushy or, almost equally as bad, the balls are tasteless because they have been boiled only in water. That defeats the whole purpose of the drink! I know there are some other boba places around that don't use the gross stuff, so please leave me a comment if you have a recommendation.