Infused Bubble Tea Bliss

Margaret 00:00:04 Welcome friends, to episode 306. And today we're doing bubble tea. Welcome to Bite Me, the show about edibles where I help you take control of your high life. I'm your host and Certified Ganjier Margaret and I love helping cooks make safe and effective edibles at home. I'm so glad you're here. Hi, friends. Welcome back to the show. To the podcast. The explores the intersection of food, culture and cannabis, helping cooks make great edibles at home. I'm so glad that you're here. What are you making today? Why don't you let me know via the fan mail? I would love to find out what it is that has you excited. What you're infusing in the kitchen. And if you're just joining us for the first time, I'd also love to hear where you're listening from. And if you've been sticking around for a while, I so dearly appreciate you. You're the reason why I'm making this podcast. So as always, I encourage you to share the episode with a friend. And if you feel so compelled to leave a five star rating and review, that really does help spread the word about the show, because this is a niche podcast.

Margaret 00:01:18 Those little things really do make a difference. I'm pretty excited about today's episode because if you listen to last week's you know that at this point that I had Christina Wong on the show to talk about entertaining in the cannabis space, and I'm really excited to take some of the things that I learned from her and apply them in my own life, whether it's the online community, the Bite Me Cannabis Club, which I encourage you to check out, I would love to have you in there. I would like to host some in-person events as well. Start out small, maybe grow. Christina does beautiful events like. absolutely stunning. If you haven't checked out that episode yet, I highly recommend that you do because you will be inspired. Before we get into today's episode, let's do a little stoner trivia because I know how much you love to test your knowledge. I'm taking a random card out of the deck. The stoner Trivia race to 420. And the question is for today, which Saturday Night Live alumni was busted trying to smuggle £9 of cannabis through O'Hare airport? Was it Steve Martin, Bill Murray, John Belushi, or Chris Farley? Well, isn't that interesting? I had no idea that this had happened to someone I shouldn't say had happened.

Margaret 00:02:42 The Saturday Night Live alum decided it was a good idea to try and smuggle £9 of cannabis through an airport. Talented? Maybe not so bright. So which alumni was it? Was it Steve Martin, Bill Murray, John Belushi, or Chris Farley? And if you guessed Bill Murray, you would be correct. That is really shocking. I've always known. As many of you likely do as well, that Bill Murray has been an advocate for cannabis for quite some time, trying to smuggle £9 of weed through an airport. I don't know if that was your best move, Bill. Just saying. There may have been a better way to try and get your weed from point A to point B, I'm not sure what that is, but £9? No small amount either. That's a pretty healthy suitcase full of weed. And of course, Bill Murray, I don't know if you've ever heard of Bill Murray sightings. They have become a bit legend. I might have to include some of those in the show notes, show notes, but he's such an interesting character of that fellow.

Margaret 00:03:47 Now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's turn to the topic of today's episode, because I'm really looking forward to this recipe was inspired by Christina Wong herself. And with permission, she said that yes, I could share a recipe from her website and she has plenty of lovely recipes over there. She. So I was looking through the list of recipes that I was going to choose. And if you've been following Christina at all and you should. She is a phenomenal baker and she has done a lot of baking, and her baked goods are gorgeous. Like it's they're stunning. So I specifically decided not to do one of those because I'm like, I don't even know if I can even come close to making these look as beautiful as she does. So I was like, I'm going to choose something else. And I came across a boba milk, also known as bubble tea, and I thought, I haven't had bubble tea in forever. And I enjoy bubble tea. It's delicious. If you haven't tried it, then you are going to enjoy this particular recipe.

Margaret 00:04:55 And if you have tried it and you know what I'm talking about, you're in for a real treat. Because did you know you can make it yourself? And it's not that difficult? It's super easy. So from her website, Fruit and Flower, this is what she says is the preamble to this recipe. Boba milk, also known as bubble tea, is a popular drink that originated in Taiwan in the 1980s. It is a refreshing, and it is a refreshing drink that's made by combining tea, milk and tapioca pearls, which give the drink its distinctive chewy texture. While you can buy the boba milk tea at many bubble tea shops, making a cannabis infused version at home is easy and delicious, I concur. Now, in my town, there are a couple of bubble tea shops and one of them I haven't even. It's been open for a little while and haven't made it in there yet. As much as I do enjoy it, I just never think to go. I've had bubble tea many times and the tapioca pearls are really, really are one of my favorite parts about it.

Margaret 00:05:53 Now, I have seen that you can make your own tapioca pearls that are for those who are so inclined. I know I have a cookbook on my shelf that is not within arm's reach right now. A cannabis cookbook that shows you how to make the bubble tea pearls or the tapioca pearls, if you're so inclined. So I'll link to that if I can remember which book that it's in. Because at this point I have quite a few books, which is one of the reasons why I love to have the different cannabis cookbooks, because I find I learn something from each and every one of them. But if you're so inclined, you can do that. But don't worry, you don't have to. That will add an extra step to the process. And while this is easy to make, there are a few different steps to creating a really good bubble tea. What do you need to make bubble tea? Well, you probably have most of what you need. You're going to need milk, a brown sugar syrup.

Margaret 00:06:48 The boba pearls and tea. And that's it. Now you may be asking, where is the infusion point in this recipe? It's the cornmeal. You can use milk. I think I used whole because I had whole milk on hand. For those of you who don't know, I live with my father and he loves milk. Often drinking a large glass. I haven't done that since I was a child. He'll often ask me if I want a glass of milk. I'm like, no, no, thank you. I don't really drink milk now. I use milk, obviously, in recipes like this, this boba tea recipe. Sometimes I use it to make other forms of dairy that I enjoy much more, like yogurt or cottage cheese. And I, of course, like many people, love cheese. So I'm not against milk per se, but sitting down to drink a glass of milk, I just I don't personally get it. He loves it, not me. But anyway, that's why I went with the choice of whole milk.

Margaret 00:07:39 You can also use oat. Almond. Soy. Coconut. The only thing that Kristina is recommending that you don't use is skim milk to make your milk the nice thing. Heard me talking about it at all. Is Vanessa Alvarado introduced to me the concept that you can infuse in 30 minutes and extract most of the cannabinoids that will make up this infusion, and then doing it for longer really is a marginal increase in cannabinoids in your infusion. So the beautiful thing is you can make this can of milk while you're getting the other things ready, because it's only going to take you half an hour. Now I did it in my Levo two device because I just set it and forget it. And I was. But I did change it because the default on that device is two hours. Now, if you don't have a device or you don't want to get one out, obviously not a problem. Just do it on the stove like you would a regular infusion. I like to do it in a pot of water with the glass clean glass jar with your contents in it, in the pot of water and let it simmer for 30 minutes.

Margaret 00:08:38 Kristina also does outline personalizing your dose for this particular recipe as it's written, which I will also include in the show notes. It serves two, so you'll get two beverages out of this one recipe. Now of course, if you want to multiply it, you can certainly do that increasing the ingredients. But you just need to be mindful of the potency. So she has a broken down in this recipe for five milligrams THC per serving, or a high dose of 100mg of THC per serving, which I find is a pretty wide range. I know lots of people who have that type of high dose tolerance. I definitely fall somewhere in the middle. In fact, closer to the low dose range, I can consume 20 to 30mg if I'm getting to, you know, 25, 30mg, I'm going to be a little more couch locked. Whereas the ten, 10 to 15 milligram, I have a nice light buzz that will allow me to sort of still function, if you will, which is one reason why I also enjoy cannabis beverages on the legal market, because at ten milligrams, I do feel those.

Margaret 00:09:39 So I can still get a buzz from them and it works really well for me, but that is a pretty wide ranging dose. But she does mention if you are going to be doing if you want to do ten milligrams per serving, you'll double the amount of low dose cannabis flower. If you want 25mg of THC per serving, you're going to multiply the amount of low dose cannabis flower by five times, and so on and so forth. Again, I'll include that in the show notes. So if you're doing a low dose of cannabis, you'll be infusing your milk with 0.1g of cannabis. That's all you need, which is kind of wild because that's really well, obviously it's very little cannabis. And it just goes to show how little it takes to really get some people buzzed. And the high dose at 100mg is 1.5g of flour because as we know, for a five milligram THC per serving, you'll need a total of ten milligrams of THC in the entire recipe. And that's slightly less than Point 1% of grams of 20% THC cannabis flowers.

Margaret 00:10:43 So you may be making some assumptions here if you don't know the actual percentage of your cannabis. So you can play around with that. But I do like how she does break it down. I didn't realize further down that she had the ways to personalize the dose, and I think that's really smart. So the first step you're going to be doing is infusing your milk with the appropriate amount of THC that will work for you into a two serving recipe. I should also mention that you probably don't want to infuse more than you need, unless you'll be consuming this infused milk within a day or two. It just doesn't really keep like like other infusions. Do you know if you infuse some olive oil or butter or and think of any other typical infusion, they will have a healthy shelf life. But I find milk just has a much shorter shelf life, and so you're better off just infusing what it is that you need at that time. And now that we know that it only takes 30 minutes. Well, that's not such a big problem anymore now, is it? Now, while you're infusing your milk, you can make your brown sugar syrup, making a brown sugar syrup or simple syrups of any kind, or basically just adding sugar and water and perhaps something else on a stove.

Margaret 00:11:53 And you stir until the sugar is dissolved and you set it aside to cool. That's essentially what you're doing for this brown sugar syrup. Super quick, super easy. And then you're going to brew your tea as well. I just boiled some water in a kettle and then took three teabags. I just infused some tea for a few minutes. And then the one thing that you will need to likely go out and buy is your tapioca pearls. And I went to a local Asian grocery store that's been in my town for 30 odd years. It used to be run by the parents, now the children run it. I bought two different kinds of bubble tea pearls. When I told them what I was looking for. The typical black ones that you see most commonly, but they also had some colored ones. So I picked up some of those as well, just because I thought it would be kind of fun. I'm sure I will be making this over the summer. You've made your brown sugar syrup brewing your tea so you have a really nice strong tea, and then you're going to be preparing your bubble tea pearls.

Margaret 00:12:48 I will say that in the recipe she's written that it's said to just boil them for five minutes. The first time I made this, I looked at the package of the bubble tea pearls and it said it had a time that was quite a bit longer. And then I looked at the recipe for five minutes, so I thought I would try the five minutes. And they turned out very, very chewy. I mean, I kind of eat them anyway, but so the next time I did it according to package instructions. So you probably want to follow the package instructions instead of what is said in this recipe unless it matches, because I just found that they were a little undercooked. But the next time I did it and followed the package instructions and they were great. And then to put it all together, because at this point you've probably also strained your canned milk because that only takes 30 minutes. So you'll strain that. And then you do need to let the the tea go to room temperature. Ideally you strain out the tea leaves if you're using loose leaf tea or take out the tea bags and you want to cool it to room temperature, so you kind of can prepare a lot of this stuff and let it sit while it cools a little bit.

Margaret 00:13:54 And then you're going to take two tall glasses, and you're going to pour in the desired amount of boba pearls and brown sugar syrup. You're going to add your ice. This is an iced drink. And then you add half of the black tea and half of the milk in the glass and stir together and voila. And the reason I like this recipe so much is because it is simple to infuse, and it's beautiful for a hot day. And at the time of me recording this particular episode, it is hot. It is hot, hot, hot. Summer definitely feels like it has arrived. It's a great warm weather beverage and the bubble tea pearls just make it so much fun. I really enjoy it. Now the one thing I will mention is you can customize it. And you know me, I love something that is customizable because think about it. You go into a bubble tea shop, and of course there's endless options for how you can make the bubble tea your own. You can experiment with different teas.

Margaret 00:14:50 My sister mentioned a couple times oolong tea I didn't realize was caffeine free. So if you're looking for a caffeine free version, that might be one direction to go so you can enjoy this without, you know, lying wide awake at 2 a.m. as I know happens to some people, my sister included. But you could try, you know, a white tea or green tea also. And I'd made it a second time and I used instead of the brown sugar syrup, I used a rhubarb simple syrup, because rhubarb also happens to be growing in the garden, and it grows pretty prolifically here. So I picked some rhubarb and I made a rhubarb simple syrup. So I have that in the fridge now because that does keep the simple syrup itself is mostly water and sugar. with a simple with the rhubarb. Simple syrup. It's basically the same thing. You just add sugar, water and rhubarb, you let it break down, and then you strain the rhubarb, the plant material out, just like you'd be doing an infusion.

Margaret 00:15:46 And of course, you can still consume the rhubarb pulp, but the simple syrup itself is just liquid. So I tried that again with this recipe or using this recipe as a base, and then use the rhubarb simple syrup. And it was really lovely. The rhubarb simple syrup actually didn't come through as strongly, if you will, and I found it was a little less sweet than the brown sugar syrup, but you can probably try a whole bunch of different things, whatever you happen to have on hand. Just follow the base instructions and I think you'll be good to go. And it's a really fun, hot weather recipe that you can make again and again and tailor it to your tastes and preferences, which is the one thing I love about any kind of recipe. I just want to say thanks again to Christina for this lovely recipe. As always, you can infuse this with THC, but if you're so inclined and you want something that's a CBD non-psychoactive relaxing option as well, you do you. That is what making your own edibles is all about.

Margaret 00:16:48 You're taking control of your life. So I hope you give it a try. Are you familiar with bubble tea? Have you had it before? Let me know. I would love to hear it. You can always let me know over a Bite Me podcast. Com there are comments allowed on the post that I that I create over there. And of course join bite me to find out how to join the Bite Me Cannabis Club. I would love to have you over there as well. Now, I do have some fun episodes coming up as well that you can look forward to. One is I will be interviewing very soon. Steve Stacy, author of Death by Cannabis and Death by Cannabis The Re-Up, a couple of books that he published. It's a murder mystery in a group and they are such a fun read. So I'm really excited about having him on the show. I have an episode with Angelina Blessed coming out very soon. She's a Canadian retired Muay Thai fighter edibles maker, and I have been playing around with infused poutine, which is very Canadian.

Margaret 00:17:49 It's about time that I did it, but it was a lot of fun playing around with that. I'll be working with it a little bit more because the first time I made it, the cheese wasn't squeaky enough. And if you know anything about cheese curds, if you know, you know cheese curds are an essential ingredient of that particular recipe. And the cheese curds I had, they just they're supposed to be squeaky. Those are some episodes that I have coming up. If there are any recipes that you'd love to see on the show, or guests that you would like me to interview, let me know. I would love to try and make your dreams come true. So until next time my friends. I'm your host, Margaret. Stay high.