Trader Joe’s Instant Boba Kit Review – Brown Sugar Tapioca Drink Mix
I had a recent pleasant experience at Trader Joe’s the other day as there were new stuff in the frozen section! It’s been a while since I’ve shopped at Trader Joe’s since I’ve been too busy to go once a week as I was doing prior years. Anyways, I was super surprised when I saw they now had their Trader Joe’s boba kit… I haven’t had too much luck with boba kits in the past, mainly because of time and clean-up and such, but I decided to give Trader Joe’s boba a try!
What is Trader Joe’s Boba?
It’s a frozen thing, keep frozen until use. It’s instant boba and usually those are frozen and heated up or they are in some powder or loose tea form for you to follow directions and make. Trader Joe’s instant boba kit is a frozen one, so I suspect they are pouches that contain a frozen mix and you heat that up. Theirs is brown sugar flavor, which reminds me of some boba ice cream.
Trader Joe’s Boba Nutrition
Boba in general gets a bad rep for having too much sugar and what not, but not everyone gets the extra sweet stuff. I usually reduce the sweetness because of taste and how my body can’t really process simple sugars as well as I used to. I’m huge on the jelly toppings though, so I’m always grateful when a place loads up on toppings on my drinks. One serving of Trader Joe’s boba is just 110 Calories, which isn’t bad at all because some places default boba milk tea contains twice as much. This is just for the packet though, so any added milk to this will all on more Calories and other macros and such.
Directions – Rather Simple, but Requires Heat!
The instant boba directions are easy to follow. Each serving is within a pouch inside. You boil some water, and then put the pouch in the water for a minute. Then you can open the pouch and put it in a cup, stir, add ice, add milk, and stir some more to your liking.
Ease of Making and Taste
TJ’s instant boba was rather easy to make since you’re just warming up the pouch, stirring the contents, adding ice and milk to it and stirring some more. It’s rather neat that they also include some boba straws in there too! The straws are paper straws without the standard boba straw pointy tip since it isn’t necessary in this situation.
The taste wasn’t bad to my surprise. I had zero expectations and was rather pleased by how this doesn’t taste like water. The boba texture wasn’t the best, but surprisingly, it wasn’t the worst either. Each pearl was sitting within the brown sugar concentrate so they absorbed some flavor. The texture reminded me a bit of the ones in those boba ice cream bars and whatnot.
Overall Rating / Worth It?
With each good boba drink being over $5 (mostly over $6 yhese days!), you can get 4 lil servings from TJ’s and put in some work making boba drinks for just the price of a standard $4 or $5 boba! Price wise, yes, TJ’s instant boba kit is worth it. There is currently just one flavor – brown sugar. If that isn’t for you, then no, I wouldn’t bother. It’s nice how you can put your own milk here to control which type of milk, but personally, I like my other flavors of boba and jelly toppings. This instant boba kit isn’t bad!
