White Rabbit Bubble Tea

I'm a massive bubble tea fan, both home made and shop bought. I recently read an article about bubble tea shop introducing White Rabbit as one of the flavours. Unfortunately, it's not available where I live, so I decided to make my own version.

For two servings:

1/2 cup black tapioca pearls (this one cooks in under 5 min) https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1-Pack-of-Wufuyuan-Blac...

6-8 White Rabbit candies https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CHINESE-WHITE-RABBIT-CR...

Black tea bags

Sugar (optional)

Bubble tea straws

If it's your first time using White Rabbit candy you will probably find that each candy is covered in a thin, paper-like wrapper within an actual wrapper. It's an edible rice paper wrapper and you don't have to remove it prior to melting.
Unwrap 6-8 pieces of candy and pop them in the sauce pan. Add about 1/4 cup of water and heat up. Let it dissolve gently while stirring every so often. Once melted and smooth, transfer to another dish to cool down.

Brew black tea (or your choice of tea). I used two tea bags for 300ml of boiling water. I also added sugar at this point- 1 teaspoon per serving (optional). Leave it cool.

Bring 5 cups of water to a boil and drop tapioca pearls in. Watch closely and wait for pearls to rise to the surface [about 1min]. Once they do, turn a timer on for 3 minutes and let them cook. Drain the pearls in a strainer and run them under cold water for 30-90 seconds.

I opted for a room temperature tea, so I didn't add any ice, but you can do so if you like.
Grab a tall, transparent glass, add half the tapioca pears and half the candy mixture. Pour tea into the glass, be gentle and don't disturb the layers. Put a thick straw in each glass and serve.